A Portrait of the City's Everyday Architecture

An ABA Indie Bestseller

A comprehensive, first-of-its-kind book about Chicago’s residential architecture and the stories that shaped it. This is an entertaining and precisely illustrated story of Chicago homes from the city’s earliest days through the Second World War, revealing everything about what makes a home a Chicago home. 

A city famous for its architecture—and for arguing with New Yorkers about who built it first and best—now has a definitive guide to the unique housing types and styles that have inspired so much devotion. This book is for curious Chicagoans and visitors alike—anyone who’s ever wondered how to spot a Foursquare or where to find Italianate homes from before the Great Chicago Fire.

Why are Chicago’s lots so narrow? How many Chicagoans built homes from a kit? What exactly is a “greystone”? The authors combine their decades of experience in historic preservation and illustration to create an evergreen resource that Chicagoans and visitors will turn to for answers to these and other questions about the city’s neighborhoods and the homes its citizens live in, visit, and admire.