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Chicago Homes: A City Illustrated by Its Everyday Architecture
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 postwar era, 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.
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.
346 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 7, 2025
About the author
Carla Bruni
1 bookPreservation and Resiliency Specialist
Carla Bruni is the Preservation and Resiliency Specialist at CBA. She handles all preservation- and sustainability- related fieldwork, inquiries, and educational materials, and is responsible for the creation of our National Register historic districts. Carla also facilitates, and occasionally leads, CBA's seminars and educational videos. Carla holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and is also a Lecturer within SAIC’s Department of Historic Preservation.
Carla Bruni is the Preservation and Resiliency Specialist at CBA. She handles all preservation- and sustainability- related fieldwork, inquiries, and educational materials, and is responsible for the creation of our National Register historic districts. Carla also facilitates, and occasionally leads, CBA's seminars and educational videos. Carla holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and is also a Lecturer within SAIC’s Department of Historic Preservation.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
November 7, 2025
This book is such a beautiful mix of history, design, and storytelling. The writing is warm and inviting (you can tell Thompson really loves the city and its architecture). It starts in the 1800s and walks you through how Chicago’s homes evolved right alongside its people, which makes it more than just a design book.
It’s a wonderful gift for anyone who loves architecture or urban history. The drawings and layouts are gorgeous, but it’s also the kind of book you actually want to read, not just flip through once. A perfect coffee table book that keeps pulling you back in!
It’s a wonderful gift for anyone who loves architecture or urban history. The drawings and layouts are gorgeous, but it’s also the kind of book you actually want to read, not just flip through once. A perfect coffee table book that keeps pulling you back in!
April 22, 2026
This was such a fun and educational book. As someone who grew up near Chicago and spent a decent amount of time in the city, this book made me stop and appreciate the architecture so much more. I've been on an architectural tour of some of the big buildings in the Windy City, but never learned anything about the homes. This book focuses solely on the evolution of homes in the city, from log cabins up to WWII bungalows. There are wonderful hand draw sketches of a variety of house houses and they are so well done. The illustrator deserves major props! The accompanying text was also interesting without being too dry. It blended history, architecture, and culture into one. An eye opening read and not just for architects, if you ever want to walk the streets and appreciate the beauty of the buildings around, then this book is for you!
September 24, 2025
God, Phil's drawings are just so lovely and the writeups in this were uniformly excellent without being dry.
October 8, 2025
Fantastic book that gives a wonderful history of the home architecture and influences through the history of Chicago!
August 12, 2026
The most memorable book of a very good summer of books. I learned so much and had so much fun doing so. I see the streets differently now! Nothing has made me feel so grounded in Chicago as learning about the history of my home and my neighborhoods. Highly recommended, especially for anyone else who calls or has called Chicago their home.
January 11, 2026
What an amazing book 😎 - a must have for anyone interested in Chicago architecture. Incredible illustrations!!
January 30, 2026
Creating my own walking tour from the stories and history from the book! Had no idea some of the architecture “celebs” were in my very neighborhood.
June 20, 2026
Excellent read! Very interesting info often including a sense of humor. Highly recommend!!
April 26, 2026
The history of Chicago Houses from Potawatomi wigwams and the cabin of Jean-Baptiste DuSable through the 1940s. Expertly drawn pen and ink images of the various types and styles of houses complemented Bruni’s descriptions of how Chicago housing evolved. Clearly lays out the many factors that influenced design and building, economical, geographical, political and outside influences from the Chicago Fire to two Worlds fairs in 1882 and 1933.
A concise and thorough history that makes you look closer as you walk the streets of the city.
A concise and thorough history that makes you look closer as you walk the streets of the city.
March 31, 2026
This book is a tour de force of Chicago residential architecture for any current, past, or future Chicago inhabitant, and for that matter anyone interested in architecture and history.
It starts 250 years ago with log cabins, wigwams, and the wild onions that gave Chicago its name, and takes you through WWII, and some more recent modifications.
For a book, it's incredibly interactive. You'll want to carry it with you around town and identify the tudors, second empires, bungalows, and Italianates. You'll want to be that guy/gal at the party explaining the difference between a belvedere and a cupola.
The illustrations do more to highlight these features than photographs ever could. I love how so much more than your run of the mill architecture tour, the text highlights the inextricable links amongst design, economics, technology, and social issues.
You'll learn how housing and the design of that housing was shaped by the great fire, the depression, the World Wars, racist financing policies, and technologies like air-conditioning, and the transition from horse-drawn carriages to gas-powered cars.
It even covers how to spot recent modifications, such as added stories, enclosed porches, and simplified staircases.
All in all it's a masterpiece and an engaging read. It's hard to imagine this being surpassed or even matched.
It starts 250 years ago with log cabins, wigwams, and the wild onions that gave Chicago its name, and takes you through WWII, and some more recent modifications.
For a book, it's incredibly interactive. You'll want to carry it with you around town and identify the tudors, second empires, bungalows, and Italianates. You'll want to be that guy/gal at the party explaining the difference between a belvedere and a cupola.
The illustrations do more to highlight these features than photographs ever could. I love how so much more than your run of the mill architecture tour, the text highlights the inextricable links amongst design, economics, technology, and social issues.
You'll learn how housing and the design of that housing was shaped by the great fire, the depression, the World Wars, racist financing policies, and technologies like air-conditioning, and the transition from horse-drawn carriages to gas-powered cars.
It even covers how to spot recent modifications, such as added stories, enclosed porches, and simplified staircases.
All in all it's a masterpiece and an engaging read. It's hard to imagine this being surpassed or even matched.
November 9, 2025
My reviews are only on StoryGraph, as I do not want to help Amazon is getting any larger. the only reason I keep this app is because it has my list and tally of past books read.
August 28, 2026
If you grew up in this city, it can be easy to overlook the brilliant architecture hiding in plain sight among the millions of buildings packed into every one of these neighborhoods. This becomes most apparent when I travel back home out of state. It can be difficult at times to describe the beauty, organization, and aesthetics of the neatly lined rowhouses, each with its own distinct flavor and history to someone who’s never seen it in person.
Luckily, after a trip to the Art Institute, I picked this up from the gift shop, and it has given me an awesome appreciation for the diversity of architectural styles that make up Chicago.
The book provides a new perspective on the architecture that surrounds us in this historic city and that is so easy to take for granted. These works of art would have otherwise stayed invisible to me, and the illustrations are beautifully drawn in a sketch style that makes them feel almost like architectural field notes.
The organization of the book is meticulously planned, following the city’s evolution—and the evolution of its architectural trends—through its major moments. Everything from the Great Fire of Chicago to the rebuilding and expansion of the city is laid out in a way that makes you start looking at the neighborhoods around you differently.
One of the most fascinating parts is the history of how Chicago physically raised itself. Because the city was so flat and poorly drained, streets and buildings had to be lifted to make room for a modern sewage system. In some cases, entire houses were raised several feet; in others, whole blocks were elevated so sewers could be installed beneath them. It is hard to imagine the scale of that undertaking, but it explains so much about the city’s foundations—literally and figuratively.
The book also shows how the Great Fire reshaped Chicago’s design. Rebuilding was not simply a matter of replacing what had burned. New building codes, fire-resistant materials, denser construction, and changing ideas about safety and sanitation all influenced what came next. Brick, stone, and limestone became increasingly important, while architects and builders experimented with new forms that could respond to the city’s rapid growth without abandoning the narrow lots and strict grid that defined it.
It even explains why limestone came to dominate Chicago architecture and how the creative minds rebuilding the city found inspiration in the narrow lots that helped make our remarkable grid system possible.
I especially loved the explanation of how the grid system influenced the row house. We couldn’t build wide, so we built narrow. Can’t build your standard ranch home with a full backyard on one story? Make it two stories, rotate it, cram it onto a narrow lot, and somehow give it more character than 90% of the nation’s cookie-cutter suburban homes that all look like the same mcmansion.
There’s also something satisfying about realizing just how precise Chicago’s grid is. The roads, alleys, setbacks, and spaces between homes create this almost accidental symmetry that you don’t necessarily notice until someone points it out. Even the city’s most ordinary buildings begin to feel like part of a larger system shaped by engineering, necessity, and a surprising amount of ingenuity.
The book also presents the architecture from a historical perspective: here’s how houses started out, here’s how they transformed, and here’s why they transformed. Bruni and Thompson do a great job laying out the history and timeline of the city’s expansion, the townships that eventually became Chicago, the building codes that drove design decisions, the raising of houses and streets for sanitation, the post-fire evolution of building design, and all the little forces that shaped the city we have today.
That’s probably what I enjoyed most about it. It isn’t just a book showing you pretty Chicago houses. It explains why Chicago looks like Chicago.
As a non-native transplant, I loved pretty much everything about this book. It gave me a new appreciation for buildings I’ve probably walked past hundreds of times without really seeing them. It also made me appreciate how much of Chicago’s architecture came from practical problems: flooding, fire, sanitation, limited space, and the constant pressure to rebuild and expand. Somehow, those constraints produced a city with an incredible amount of character.
Bonus points for being an absolutely killer coffee-table book.
Luckily, after a trip to the Art Institute, I picked this up from the gift shop, and it has given me an awesome appreciation for the diversity of architectural styles that make up Chicago.
The book provides a new perspective on the architecture that surrounds us in this historic city and that is so easy to take for granted. These works of art would have otherwise stayed invisible to me, and the illustrations are beautifully drawn in a sketch style that makes them feel almost like architectural field notes.
The organization of the book is meticulously planned, following the city’s evolution—and the evolution of its architectural trends—through its major moments. Everything from the Great Fire of Chicago to the rebuilding and expansion of the city is laid out in a way that makes you start looking at the neighborhoods around you differently.
One of the most fascinating parts is the history of how Chicago physically raised itself. Because the city was so flat and poorly drained, streets and buildings had to be lifted to make room for a modern sewage system. In some cases, entire houses were raised several feet; in others, whole blocks were elevated so sewers could be installed beneath them. It is hard to imagine the scale of that undertaking, but it explains so much about the city’s foundations—literally and figuratively.
The book also shows how the Great Fire reshaped Chicago’s design. Rebuilding was not simply a matter of replacing what had burned. New building codes, fire-resistant materials, denser construction, and changing ideas about safety and sanitation all influenced what came next. Brick, stone, and limestone became increasingly important, while architects and builders experimented with new forms that could respond to the city’s rapid growth without abandoning the narrow lots and strict grid that defined it.
It even explains why limestone came to dominate Chicago architecture and how the creative minds rebuilding the city found inspiration in the narrow lots that helped make our remarkable grid system possible.
I especially loved the explanation of how the grid system influenced the row house. We couldn’t build wide, so we built narrow. Can’t build your standard ranch home with a full backyard on one story? Make it two stories, rotate it, cram it onto a narrow lot, and somehow give it more character than 90% of the nation’s cookie-cutter suburban homes that all look like the same mcmansion.
There’s also something satisfying about realizing just how precise Chicago’s grid is. The roads, alleys, setbacks, and spaces between homes create this almost accidental symmetry that you don’t necessarily notice until someone points it out. Even the city’s most ordinary buildings begin to feel like part of a larger system shaped by engineering, necessity, and a surprising amount of ingenuity.
The book also presents the architecture from a historical perspective: here’s how houses started out, here’s how they transformed, and here’s why they transformed. Bruni and Thompson do a great job laying out the history and timeline of the city’s expansion, the townships that eventually became Chicago, the building codes that drove design decisions, the raising of houses and streets for sanitation, the post-fire evolution of building design, and all the little forces that shaped the city we have today.
That’s probably what I enjoyed most about it. It isn’t just a book showing you pretty Chicago houses. It explains why Chicago looks like Chicago.
As a non-native transplant, I loved pretty much everything about this book. It gave me a new appreciation for buildings I’ve probably walked past hundreds of times without really seeing them. It also made me appreciate how much of Chicago’s architecture came from practical problems: flooding, fire, sanitation, limited space, and the constant pressure to rebuild and expand. Somehow, those constraints produced a city with an incredible amount of character.
Bonus points for being an absolutely killer coffee-table book.
February 27, 2026
Cool book. Lots of amazing graphics but also lots of words - def skimmed at parts I wasn’t too interested in but overall really fascinating. Learned a lot about residential architecture in Chicago. Look up!
March 22, 2026
I usually don't read books on architecture and I have never lived in Chicago and yet this was a very fun and informative read. As others have said, the visuals are gorgeous and the writing is incredibly engaging.
August 4, 2026
CPL challenge
Oh how I love architecture. So great to learn more details about the most prevelant kind (domestic). I love Chicago and it’s variety of housing stock. I just wish a tad more detail given
Oh how I love architecture. So great to learn more details about the most prevelant kind (domestic). I love Chicago and it’s variety of housing stock. I just wish a tad more detail given
March 5, 2026
SWEET HOME CHICAGO! Absolutely thrilled when I recognized a house in my neighborhood that was discussed in this book!
August 26, 2026
4.5. Very informative without being overly academic. Author is witty and the illustrations are lovely. I'm excited to seek out some of these buildings on my next trip to Chicago.
September 2, 2026
This is a fun book! Lots of illustrations of actual Chicago homes. The author has a fun writing voice and was super informative and interesting.
September 14, 2026
Chicago is a great city for architecture and if you have ever lived there, you will enjoy this exploration that is part architecture, part history, and all about discovery. Really enjoyed it!
November 8, 2025
This book is wonderful! If you live or have lived in Chicago, it's especially fascinating but Bruni does an incredible job of telling stories and explaining why architectural history of Chicago would be of interest to others, too. The many illustrations also are excellent. Makes a great gift for Chicagoans and those into archiecture.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews