JANUARY 2009 » book review

Designing Chicago

Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921
by Susan Benjamin and Stuart Cohen
Acanthus Press, New York, NY; 2008
336 pages; hardcover; 341 b&w illustrations; $75.00
ISBN 978-0-92649-439-8

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

In an introductory essay to his book Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921, co-author Stuart Cohen offers a bit of standard wisdom: "Late-19th- and early-20th-century Chicago architecture is renowned for the development of the skyscraper and, in residential architecture, of the Prairie School. The former put forward the expression of frame construction as a new aesthetic and the latter, the development of new ideas about interior space and its visual connection to the outside. Both became cornerstones for the development of 20th-century modern architecture." However, the book he has written with Susan Benjamin covers the above-mentioned timeframe and yet is about neither skyscrapers nor Prairie-style houses. Why? "These two progressive approaches seem to have little to do with the history of the great city houses built in Chicago between the 1870s and the 1920s," they write, "as these were designed in traditional architectural styles based on historical forms and details." Hence, a book devoted to the golden age of great house design in one of America's great cities – more than 30 classic buildings are examined in loving detail, with an impressive array of period photographs, both interior and exterior, bringing to life this dynamic period in urban architecture.

By 1871, Chicago was home to well over 100,000 people. It had ascended rapidly since its formal incorporation as a town (population 350) in 1833. During Chicago's first decades, beautiful work was achieved in house design and construction, especially in the Greek Revival and Italianate styles, as is noted in Benjamin's introductory essay. But on the night of October 8, 1871, a fire erupted near DeKoven Street and raged in the city until the evening of the October 10th. In about 48 hours, more than three square miles of the city were incinerated and some 300 people were killed; another 90,000 people – the bulk of the city's population – were left homeless. Most of Chicago's buildings had been made of wood, and the fire marked a savage turning point in the development of the city's architecture. "Thereafter," Cohen notes, "houses within the city limits were required to be of fireproof construction. Expensive houses were built of stone, banishing wood houses in the Victorian-era Queen Anne style and its shingled derivatives to the suburbs."

In the years immediately after the fire, house design in Chicago was mostly French-influenced – "characterized by mansard roofs, projecting bays that were usually flat rather than angled, and ubiquitous corner towers, even when a house wasn't built on a corner." Yes, during the 1870s and '80s there were also brick Georgian houses and Tudors of brick and stone springing up alongside the French-style houses clad in limestone. What transformed the city's architectural identity, however, was the Romanesque Revival style of H.H. Richardson.

"Why did it persist in Chicago long after it fell out of fashion elsewhere?" asks Cohen. "Why did it influence Chicago's residential and civic architecture so strongly?" It's a fundamental question for this study. Why indeed should Richardson's medieval-inspired Romanesque Revival buildings – with their heavy massings, varied rustication and reliance on arches and towers and columns – strike such a deep chord in the Windy City? Cohen argues that this style was embraced because of its "simplicity" and "appearance of structural honesty." He observes that "in the 1880s and '90s the style was modern, and it differed markedly from the eclectic styles that preceded it." The writer would also submit that, beyond their obvious resistance to fire, those massive houses also literalized a spirit of solidity and permanence, which had to have made them a healing presence for a deeply traumatized populace.

Then again, half the houses examined in depth in Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921, no longer stand, so who's to say what's solid and permanent and what is not? But because half of its houses do still stand, Benjamin and Cohen's handsome book is not only a first-rate blend of architectural history, interior-design documentation, and evocative Americana, it's also a must-have travel guide for anyone who wants to see great American architecture. All the classics are here – the Chicago Archbishop's House, Richardson's Glessner House, Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, Wright and Louis Sullivan's Charnley House – as well as such under-celebrated gems as the Bryan Lathrop House, a Georgian Revival (rare for Chicago) by famed East Coast architect Charles McKim, or the elegant small Prairie house designed by George Maher for Ernest J. Magerstadt.  

«BACK TO JANUARY 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Have something to say about this article? Feel free to comment!

Comments feed