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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
33 people are currently reading
178 people want to read
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 - 12 of 12 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!
January 11, 2026
What an amazing book 😎 - a must have for anyone interested in Chicago architecture. Incredible illustrations!!
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.
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.
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.
March 5, 2026
SWEET HOME CHICAGO! Absolutely thrilled when I recognized a house in my neighborhood that was discussed in this book!
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.
February 23, 2026
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 - 12 of 12 reviews