“Chicago’s neighborhoods each have a unique character, yet there are common threads running throughout that make them look and feel like a distinctly Chicagoan community. The bungalow is one of those threads.
“Chicago bungalows were largely influenced by the Prairie School, a style of architecture associated with Frank Lloyd Wright and a number of his contemporaries. The homes were affordable, yet they were reflective of an emerging American style, distinct from other styles that drew heavily upon European architecture for inspiration. From 1910 to about 1929, bungalows were built all over the city.
“[Bungalows] are the bulk of our housing stock,” says Tom Drebenstedt, a Chicago Architecture Center docent. “There are 80,000 of these scattered throughout the city.” Many of these homes are nearly a century old, and they remain a significant piece of Chicago’s architectural legacy.
“The bungalow represents the beginning of a modern movement toward bigger and accommodations with a little more volume and scale to them, but still took advantage of the standard Chicago lot,” says Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago.
“‘The Chicago bungalow first entered the scene around 1910. Its predecessor, the worker’s cottage, was slightly more utilitarian, according to Miller. ‘It became so economical and so popular that entire blocks of the city, especially in areas of the South Side, Northwest Side, and Far West Side, found themselves to be almost block after block of these bungalows’.” (Pallardy, 8/1/19)
Read the full article at Neighborhoods.com
The Chicago Bungalow’s Enduring Legacy, Carrie Pallardy, Neighborhoods.com, 8/1/19