The city is filled with well-designed building types: banks, houses, churches \u2014 skyscrapers, of course. But how often are public schools considered?<\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s schools, particularly those designed between the late 1800s and early 1900s, are among the city\u2019s most architecturally distinctive buildings. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re temples to the ideals of a free public education \u2014 something to consider as the new school year gets underway.<\/p>\n
And the 40 schools designed by Dwight Perkins during his five-year term as the system\u2019s chief architect are among the best of the best. I was reminded of this earlier this month when the Chicago History Museum sent out a back-to-school announcement heralding Perkins\u2019s work. <\/p>\n
The sprawling, Prairie School-designed Carl Schurz High School, at 3601 N. Milwaukee Ave., is the best-known of Perkins\u2019 work for the school system. It\u2019s a city landmark that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. <\/p>\n
But there is also Harper High School, at 6520 S. Wood St.; the former Trumbull Elementary, at 5200 N. Ashland Ave.; Schurz\u2019s unsung, but not landmarked, twin, Bowen High School, at 2710 E. 89th St., and 40 other predominantly Prairie School-styled school buildings Perkins designed between 1905 and 1910.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of open space, the Progressive Movement, the Prairie School, he was chief architect for the public schools at a time when all of these movements were coming together,\u201d Chicago Architecture Center President and CEO Eleanor Gorski said. \u201cHe was able to wrap all of these [movements] together in a dramatic, beautiful architectural package.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perkins\u2019 school work represents an extraordinary break from the neo-Gothic and Greek Revival templates that gripped educational building architecture at the time.<\/p>\n
His schools were often lively and colorful, brick and terra-cotta buildings \u2014 almost Mayan and Egyptian in detail and form in the case of Harper High and George W. Tilton Elementary, at 221 N. Keebler Ave.<\/p>\n
Other schools, such as Schurz and Bowen, are strongly Prairie School, with exposed brick piers, broad overhanging roofs and horizontal ranks of windows.<\/p>\n
Creating open space around the schools was another hallmark of his work, particularly in the case of Schurz, where he sites the building on a triangular 8-acre site.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go in any neighborhood where his school buildings are, they stand out \u2014 in a city with tons of famous architects,\u201d Gorski said.<\/p>\n
And what did Perkins get for all this?<\/p>\n
Fired.<\/p>\n
The school system accused Perkins of incompetence, insubordination and building extravagant designs. The charges ended up being reduced to insubordination, and he was dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real reason was that he specified terra cotta or brick [for his designs], and there were three people [on the school board with connections] to the cut-stone industry,\u201d Perkins\u2019 then-87-year-old son, architect Lawrence Perkins (who founded the firm Perkins & Will), told me in a 1993 Sun-Times story. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe used to keep them in line, and they didn\u2019t like it one damn bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Dwight Perkins would go on to bigger and better things. His firm Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton would design the Lincoln Park Zoo Lion House and Lincoln Park\u2019s Cafe Brauer.<\/p>\n
And his designs with the firm Perkins, Chatten & Hammond include Northwest Tower, now called The Robey, a 12-story Art Deco skyscraper at North, Damen and Milwaukee avenues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never had to work for half of what he was worth again,\u201d Lawrence Perkins said.<\/p>\n
Rebekah Coffman, the Chicago History Museum\u2019s curator of religion and community history, said the Perkins-related email blast was part of a larger effort to bring more attention to the institution\u2019s architectural holdings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re thinking about collections in different ways [and] it just seems like a good kickoff to the school year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Coffman said the museum has many of Perkins\u2019 school material, including drawings, pamphlets and photographs, all of which could be part of a 2027 exhibit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of material,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city is filled with well-designed building types: banks, houses, churches \u2014 skyscrapers, of course. But how often…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-135666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}