The Chicago Bungalow

Maldre.)

PREFACE

Chicago is world-renowned for great architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and a host of other innovative architects each built their reputations here. Yet the Chicago architectural contribution most common in the city is one that is attached to no particular architect or single home but to thousands of them—the Chicago Bungalow. Built in the early 1900s, with their detailed windows, stone work, pitched roofs, sheltered entrances, and neat lawns, the bungalow became immediately popular. For the first time, average Chicagoans could be homeowners as dignified housing for all was available at modest cost. The 80,000 to 100,000 bungalows built between 1910 and 1940 stood as visible proof of the increasing prosperity of Chicago’s working families.

Chicago Bungalows are as stalwart as Chicagoans, withstanding winter after frigid winter. Their brick construction and one-and-one-half-story profile, which lend a hunkered-down look on cold snowy days, have protected residents from the elements for generations. But they also allow for the full enjoyment of Chicago’s precious warm-weather months, too; some still have the window box brackets and lovely planters that originally graced them.

This book is a celebration not only of bungalow architecture in Chicago but of the homes’ diverse residents and neighborhoods as well. Adding to the fabric of each neighborhood are local houses of worship, parks, and other cultural keystones. It explores the origins, building, finance, and the special place of the bungalow in women’s domestic history. From early evolution of the city’s Bungalow Belt to the present, Chicago Bungalow communities cover the full ethnic, racial, economic, and generational spectrum.

Chicago’s bungalows and Bungalow Belt neighborhoods are as attractive to homebuyers today as when they were in the vanguard of urban housing. They are an architectural treasure and critical part of the city’s housing infrastructure—comprising nearly a third of Chicago’s single-family housing. The city’s Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative was set forth to provide an education, financing, and marketing program to celebrate the architectural and historical importance and to ensure the viability of the Chicago Bungalow’s contribution to families, neighborhoods, and the nation’s architecture. This project was initiated by the City of Chicago’s Department of Housing, and is a joint endeavor of the City of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the newly created Historic Chicago Bungalow Association.

All this may seem like a lot of attention on the humble Chicago Bungalow. It is, and it is well deserved. Indeed, the Chicago Bungalow is a Chicago icon.

Bonita C. Mall

Chicago Architecture Foundation

The Bungalow Belt stretched along the outskirts of Chicago in a crescent shape between the suburbs and the industrial neighborhoods outside the Loop. (Courtesy of City of Chicago Department of Housing.)

one

DEFINING THE CHICAGO BUNGALOW

by Scott Sonoc

Nearly 100,000 bungalows line both Chicago and suburban streets. In many neighborhoods they are the dominant housing type such as on this block of homes on the 1600 block of East Avenue in Berwyn. While these homes may appear the same, a close look will reveal many differences that created a sense of individuality for the owner. (Photograph by Mati Maldre.)

It is difficult if not impossible to design without an awareness of the prevailing zeitgeist or spirit of the time in which we live. The architects who gave shape to the Chicago Bungalow did so as a result of the concurrence of influences between 1880 and 1940. These included various cultural, economic, technical, and social concepts. The zeitgeist of the late 1800s included the American desire to create an architecture that reflected a new way of life, different from old European influences. The young free enterprise system was being quickly pushed along by a growing population and plenty of cheap land to develop. As well, the conveniences of time-saving mass-produced products and the demands from a more educated urban population predicated the formation of a new lifestyle with new housing demands.

In 1926, a high school home economics textbook, The House and Its Care, described what a residence should look like, how it should function, and how it should be maintained. Concerning a house’s appearance, the book states,

. . . To secure a good architectural composition it is essential to achieve both ‘unity’ and ‘balance.’ ‘Unity’ means the arrangement of different parts in such a way as to produce a harmonious whole, while ‘balance’ means an arrangement which makes the general proportions of the building pleasing.

. . . A well designed house expresses sincerity through simple lines, the use of good material, and the avoidance of all shams; it expresses beauty through good proportion, pleasing decoration, and a balance of parts; it emphasizes purpose, through an arrangement of rooms, to be of greatest comfort and convenience to all members of the family.

Today, as in the late 1800s and early 1900s, architects strive to artfully create houses by manipulating lines, planes, curves, and colors, vying to add sculptural and visual beauty to the world. Architects are taught to create as artists with toolboxes filled with abstract shapes. Depending on how the pieces are put together, an entire house and even small parts of a house can display specific characteristics and maybe even exhibit an idea or a notion to evoke a memory or tell a story. The architectural character of a bungalow in Chicago can be discovered by looking back past the early twentieth century and watching how the pertinent issues of those days influenced the architects’ designs, as it is those architectural designs that would ultimately culminate in the Chicago Bungalow.

CHICAGO BUNGALOW ORIGINS

As the population in the United States spread across the land, the need to build housing fast and economically became the rule of the day. In the nineteenth century, railroads expanded rapidly across the continent providing transportation and creating a national market. Manufacturing companies began to mass produce building products in standardized shapes and sizes, like nails and thin lumber for Balloon Frame Construction. Prior to manufactured building products, skilled carpenters crafted homes out of local materials, as with log cabin and traditional hand cut timber techniques.

Between 1871 and 1900, the predominant residential building style in Chicago was Victorian. Many regional variations, all within the Victorian style, were overlaid as character themes to generate residential building variety. These themes included French-Mansard, Stick Style, Shingle, and Romanesque.

From 1880 to 1920, the City of Chicago annexed surrounding farmland and suburbs. New infrastructure was being installed, including streets and alleys, water and sewer pipes, gas pipes, electric lines, and public rail transportation. Developers transformed rural land into new neighborhoods.

As streetcar lines and later automobiles helped people get to jobs more quickly, the need to live close to work became less of a necessity. In fact, because Chicago’s population had grown so quickly during the late 1800s, downtown neighborhoods became overburdened with too many people and too little infrastructure. Apartment buildings and two-flats quickly crowded the city’s residential areas. Residential densities in Chicago typically ranged from 28 to 40 units per acre in the older inner-city neighborhoods built before 1900. Afterwards, the block and alley patterns remained essentially the same, yet residential densities of 10 to 12 units per acre dominated in newer neighborhoods.

Aware of the unsanitary and threatening conditions in which many children lived in Chicago’s neighborhoods, social reformer Jane Addams stressed the importance of raising the quality of urban life for all of Chicago’s residents. She provided leadership for a civic movement that focused on the need to improve urban life, including education, social services, and urban housing. The planning and architecture of Chicago’s new neighborhoods directly responded to Jane Addams’ call to improve the quality of life for the city’s residents.

Streetcars such as these at 79th Street and Exchange Avenue were essential to the development of the Bungalow Belt in Chicago. They made it possible for the average worker to easily commute to work and enjoy the benefits of a home with plenty of space. (Courtesy of Special Collections and Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library.)

Beginning in the early 1900s and continuing for nearly 40 years, Chicago’s outer neighborhoods like Jefferson Park, Marquette Park, Austin, South Shore, and Beverly all grew with the promise of a new and healthy lifestyle. Developers and builders touted these new residential communities as well positioned between the American Prairie to the west and the Great Metropolis on Lake Michigan. A quote from a typical advertisement in April of 1919 states, In the history of Chicago, there has never been offered to the people a more valuable opportunity than in Marquette Manor. What was a few years ago farm land, today has been developed into a high class residential subdivision, and no money was spared to accomplish this purpose and to make this property the finest home spot on the great Southwest Side. The home spot so often mentioned in advertisements was a single family home on its own parcel of land, also known as the Chicago Bungalow.

The Arts and Crafts style had a direct influence on the development of the Chicago Bungalow. That movement gained popularity in England in the mid-1800s, and migrated to America by the end of the century. As goods and products in England evolved from being produced by hand to being manufactured for mass production, many individuals, especially within the artistic and academic professions, argued against the homogeneity and lack of personalization that could result in an industrialized nation. They promoted the maintenance and strengthening of the special character and individuality of each person. Arts and Crafts practitioners focused on fusing work and art through the daily routines of the working class. They believed that this combination would lead to a higher quality of life.

This Arts and Crafts-style bungalow was typical of California bungalows but was occasionally built in Chicago. While this bungalow on North Mozart clearly has design features that had more in common with homes in Pasadena, its brick construction reflected Chicago preferences. (Photograph by Mati Maldre.)

Initially, Arts and Crafts ideas, promoting a home as a private retreat from bustling modern society, resulted in small vacation cottages on the East Coast as well as in larger and more elaborate houses on the West Coast. Most characteristic of Arts and Crafts houses, in both the east and west, was that they were made of wood and stucco construction with large open-air front porches. The architect, furniture maker, and editor, Gustav Stickley, promoted many of the Arts and Crafts ideals through his magazine, The Craftsman, published between 1901 and 1916.

Various magazines such as House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens, The Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Craftsman touted Arts and Crafts principals. Simultaneously, architects in Chicago like Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright developed a new definition of architectural style that broke free of historic European style, and better represented the ideals of America—new lands, new technologies, new citizens, and new ways of living. The Prairie School has most often been characterized as the unique Midwestern architectural achievement, often overshadowing the Chicago Bungalow. In reality, the Prairie School grew out of the Arts and Crafts Movement and had a profound effect on the development of the Chicago Bungalow, which combined the two earlier movements, creating affordable and stylish homes for Chicagoans leaving older industrial neighborhoods at the city’s core.

Great variety in form and detail has been achieved in the appearance of the Chicago Bungalow by overlaying numerous architectural variations and Arts and Crafts ideals. Also, through the attention to issues pertinent to Chicago’s social reform movements at the turn of the twentieth century, interior floor plans and amenities exhibit simple, functional, and sanitary attributes.

THE BUNGALOW CONTEXT

Following the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Chicago Bungalows are situated on a single lot with a garden, in harmony with the environment. Radford’s Artistic Homes Catalogue, published in Chicago in 1908, states, . . . as to the location of the house, it should not be placed in the middle of the lot. To provide lawn room and a place for shrubbery and flower beds the house should be at one side or well back so that when the lawn decorations are placed, the picture will be artistic and the grounds will seem to be really a part of the house. Often this point is overlooked and an otherwise stylish house is ruined by being out of harmony with the lot on which it sits.

This bungalow appearing in the American Builder shows the influence of the Prairie School with its emphasis on horizontal lines. The floor plan reflects the Arts and Crafts Movement’s emphasis on an open and connected living space within. (American Builder, October 1919.)

During the mid-1800s, landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing advocated placing the front of houses in garden-like settings and locating the kitchen and other secondary workspaces in back away from the main entrance. In Chicago, the romantic idea of a house on its own lot surrounded by landscaping had great appeal to urban city dwellers sharing apartments and flats. Today, mature trees in grass-covered parkways line Chicago Bungalow streets, providing a canopy of shade during the summer.

Victorian-era landscaping placed exotic plants in formal and rigid configurations to be viewed as objects of art. Whereas natural gardens with irregular plantings of local origin better expressed the views of the Arts and Crafts doctrine, and as such, the Chicago Bungalow, which was built with inside rooms and outside landscaping blending together. Foundation plantings were the landscaping style of choice. Usually shrubs were planted close