The Chicago Bungalow (IL) (GEN) [Paperback]

Chicago Architecture Foundation (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2003

The Chicago Bungalow is more than a housing style indigenous to the city. It epitomizes Chicago's work ethic and its rewards for successive waves of ethnic newcomers to the city since the early 20th century. In this book, the Chicago Architecture Foundation interprets both the design and the meaning of these homes, in keeping with CAF's mission to raise awareness of Chicago's architectural legacy.

After 1915, new neighborhoods appeared across the prairie. The Chicago-style bungalow came to both dominate and symbolize these areas. A one and one-half story single-family freestanding home, it included such conveniences as electricity, indoor plumbing, and central heat. Chicagoans built some 80,000 bungalows. Another 20,000 were built in suburban Cook County. Nearly every ethnic and racial group in the area has made its way at one time or another to the Bungalow Belt. Today the Bungalow Belt includes white ethnic, African American, Latino, and Asian families.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The City of Chicago launched the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative in September 2000. In partnership with the newly created Historic Chicago Bungalow Association, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, financial institutions, and the City of Chicago are taking the steps necessary to preserve bungalow communities. The Chicago Bungalow is a critical part of the city's housing infrastructure and an architectural treasure that has remained too little known and appreciated. It is hoped that this book and exhibition will help to focus attention on this long ignored treasure of Chicago's architectural legacy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (March 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738523127
• ISBN-13: 978-0738523125
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,083,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Social History, December 17, 2002

By 

"krchicago" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chicago Bungalow (Illinois) (Hardcover)

"The Chicago Bungalow" is a collection of essays created as a companion volume to a Chicago Architectural Foundation exhibition staged in connection with the City's Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative, which provides financing and other incentives to help bungalow owners improve and maintain their homes and communities. To this day, the bungalows themselves are an important part of Chicago's architectural heritage and the neighborhoods that grew up around them are part of what makes Chicago such a liveable city.

Although sponsored by an architectural organization, this book emphasizes social history rather than aesthetic appreciation. There is one brief essay on the characteristics of the bungalow (i.e., what is a bungalow and what, if anything, sets Chicago bungalows apart from those found in other areas of the country), but most of the rest of the text addresses how the various areas were developed by real estate tycoons and others, how bungalows were built and financed, how the modern conveniences they contained affected the lives of women, which social groups bought bungalows (interestingly, the non-Chicago authors seem to think these were middle class neighborhoods, while the Chicago authors mostly characterize them as working class), the social organizations of one bungalow community (Portage Park), and how neighborhoods have changed (primarily racially) over the years. (The latter essay mostly glosses over Chicago's sad history of segregation, racism, block busting and white flight.) I found the information on the "own your own home" movement (a relatively recent part of the American dream) and on the standardization of plumbing fixtures and non-standarization of wood trim particularly interesting. Black-and-white pictures throughout the book more or less illustrate the text (sometimes the connection is not obvious) and there is a 16-page section of color photos illustrating the diversity of forms and some of the decorative features of Chicago bungalows.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the origins of this housing form and how it affected the lives of working class Chicagoans. If your interest is confined to the aesthetic aspects of bungalows, however, this will not add much to what you already know.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bungalow Heaven, March 23, 2002

By 

Paul Eiserloh (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chicago Bungalow (Illinois) (Hardcover)

Nice book on Chicago's own bungalow tradition. Nice pictures of not only classic Chicago bungalows, but of many of it's inhabitants in the great Chicago Bungalow Belt. Only wish the book was longer and had more color photos, but it does show examples of my favorite part of the Chicago bungalows from the 1920's, art glass. They will NEVER build houses like these again. Attention to the Southside as well as the Northside belts. Recommended reading for us lay people who love Chicago's unique brick bungalows.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars These houses have more style than it appears, September 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Chicago Bungalow (IL) (GEN) (Paperback)

The book wasn't what I expected from a book with this title. But, I'm glad someone wrote it and wished they had focused more on the architecture, the many styles, and the seemingly endless stained glass designs in the front windows of the fancier bungalows. Overall it was very nice to see and a decent read. I had lived in one on a corner lot and appreciated the author's discussion of face brick, and other details on corner houses.