{"id":395526,"date":"2026-01-08T16:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/395526\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:53:12","slug":"where-to-see-bruce-goffs-prolific-architecture-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/395526\/","title":{"rendered":"Where to see Bruce Goff\u2019s prolific architecture in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMaterial Worlds,\u201d an exhibition currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago<\/a>, offers a glimpse into the unusual mind and prolific creativity of the late architect Bruce Goff, including his music, paintings and architectural drawings.<\/p>\n

Goff, who grew up and launched his career as an architect in Oklahoma, spent close to a decade in Chicago, from 1934 to 1942, teaching and developing an independent architectural practice. It was here Goff began to create residences that still to this day overturn preconceived ideas about home design.<\/p>\n

Some of those structures still exist, tucked away in neighborhoods from Uptown to Aurora. They may well be homes you\u2019ve driven past, with little more than a small marker to designate their architectural significance.<\/p>\n

With a few exceptions, Goff created residences for mainly middle class people living across the Midwest and later Texas. He worked closely with his clients, some of whom became friends and patrons, to design living spaces that were meant to meet their day to day needs even as the final structures appear way ahead of their time. With their circular floor plans, triangular windows and imaginative use of materials, Goff\u2019s homes challenge notions about how we might want to live together.<\/p>\n

Goff considered his time in Chicago a potent period in his development. In \u201cGoff on Goff: Conversations and Lectures,\u201d edited by Philip B. Welch, he says \u201cprobably nothing I had done previous to the Unseth house in Park Ridge, Illinois\u2026could be called very much my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are five Illinois residences that offer locals the opportunity to get a sense of how Goff became Goff. If you go, please be aware these are all private properties and not open to the public or tours.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Helen<\/p>\n

Diagonal wood boards create triangle covers along the front windows of the Helen Unseth House and a vertical row of heavy, clear glass ashtrays punctuate the main entrance, offering a quirky take on porthole windows.<\/p>\n

Helen Unseth House (1940) <\/p>\n

808 Park Plaine Ave., Park Ridge<\/p>\n

This triangle-shaped house in Park Ridge is one of Goff\u2019s first commissions as an independent architect. Set on a small, wooded lot, it is both respectful of and wildly different from the neighboring houses it sits snugly alongside.<\/p>\n

A small storage space stands guard in front of the house, creating a sense of mystery and privacy, a recurring element of Goff\u2019s homes. Diagonal wood boards create triangle covers along the front windows of the house and a vertical row of heavy, clear glass ashtrays punctuate the main entrance, offering a quirky take on porthole windows. A central fireplace culminates in a prismatic skylight which, from the exterior, seems to energetically rise from deep within the house, like tectonic plates shifting skyward.<\/p>\n

Many of Goff\u2019s local residences have been carefully preserved or restored, but his other Park Ridge home, the Frank Cole House, was recently torn down.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Goff designed the ahead-of-its-time Charles Turzak House in the late 1930s, long before the modernist craze of the 1950s and 60s.<\/p>\n

Anthony Vazquez\/Chicago Sun-Times<\/p>\n

Charles Turzak Residence (1938-39) <\/p>\n

7059 N. Olcott Ave., Edison Park<\/p>\n

The Turzak house might seem of a piece with its suburban North Side neighborhood, offering a conventional take on mid-century design. That is, until you realize that Goff designed this house in the late 1930s, long before the modernist craze of the 1950s and 60s.<\/p>\n

As with many of his residences, Goff makes ingenious use of the site, in this case a small, narrow corner lot. Set back from the street, its exterior clad in Chicago common brick, the house runs almost the entire length of the property, ending with a glassed-in sunroom, a modification Goff made to the original porch.<\/p>\n

The flat-roofed, two-story structure has a large wooden balcony and overhangs, emphasizing the horizontal planes and shifting shape of the structure. The house was also the home studio of Turzak, an artist who made highly stylized woodcuts of various Chicago scenes, among them the Adler Planetarium and Oak Street Beach. Goff ensured natural light was abundant throughout, via narrow vertical windows that line the sides of the house and wrap around some corners.<\/p>\n

Chester and Irma Rant House (1938-39)<\/p>\n

210 Wagner Road, Northfield<\/p>\n

This home has been described by some as \u201cUsonian inspired\u201d and, like the Turzak residence, it does at first glance invoke Frank Lloyd Wright \u2014 a significant figure in Goff\u2019s development. The long, low rectangular property is set back off a small winding drive and the use of wood brick and ample glass echoes Goff\u2019s early designs. According to WBEZ contributor Dennis Rodkin, a few years after moving in, the Rants commissioned an addition<\/a> to the house, designed by Chicago-based architects Perkins & Will.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Myron Bachman Residence is a silvery angular structure that resembles a space age vessel from another planet landed in Uptown.<\/p>\n

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere\/Chicago Sun-Times<\/p>\n

Myron Bachman Residence (1947-48)<\/p>\n

1244 W. Carmen Ave., Chicago<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t possibly miss Goff\u2019s Bachman House, a silvery angular structure that resembles a space age vessel from another planet landed in the midst of Uptown. This renovation of a late 19th century structure, undertaken for a local music engineer, demonstrates Goff\u2019s canny use of common materials in surprising ways.<\/p>\n

Here he applied the corrugated aluminum typical of a military Quonset Hut to the exterior. This application conceals and dramatizes some of the home\u2019s original elements, including the gable roof with its stunning triangular shaped window design. A large metal overhang bisects the front of the house, dwarfing the small entryway and garage. The current owner has recently been restoring the structure, including replacing the entire metal skin of the house, allowing passersby the opportunity to revisit how this house Goff so stunningly rebuilt came together.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Ruth Van Sickle Ford and Sam Ford House is a series of circular planes, including a central sunken kitchen, fireplace and long curving couch covered by an overhead open air platform that served as Ford\u2019s studio.<\/p>\n

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere\/Chicago Sun-Times<\/p>\n

Ruth Van Sickle Ford and Sam Ford House (1949-50)<\/p>\n

404 S. Edgelawn Drive, Aurora<\/p>\n

After serving in the U.S. Navy Construction Battalion (the Seabees), Goff returned to the Chicago area to create this house for the artist Ruth Ford. The architect first met Ford when she was running the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught. Like many of his creative clients, Ford wanted a residence that would provide space to both make and exhibit paintings. Goff came up with a rather unusual 70-foot gallery wall, using rectangles of anthracite coal interspersed with arrangements of one of his signature materials, aquamarine chunks of cullet glass, which emit a watery light.<\/p>\n

The house is a series of circular planes, including a central sunken kitchen, fireplace and long curving couch covered by an overhead open air platform that served as Ford\u2019s studio. Organized around a large pillar, the house\u2019s curving walls meet in a massive skylight with an intricate lattice made of Quonset Hut ribs, painted a vivid orange red. Those same ribs form the exterior structure of the home, a bright note of punctuation in its wintry Midwestern environs.<\/p>\n

Aurora, with its quaint downtown and many churches, feels a bit like small-town Iowa, so Goff\u2019s design more than stands out, so much so that the Fords erected a sign on their property stating, \u201cWe don\u2019t like your house either.\u201d Still, the home was featured in Life Magazine and continues to attract attention. In an onsite interview, current resident and steward of the home, architect Sidney K. Robinson, is careful to clarify that he is not a Goff but a Ford House fan. Having lived there for over three decades, he extols how the house connects with all kinds of people, saying, \u201cAlmost anybody can find something. And I think a piece of architecture that invites all kinds of reactions is a great piece of architecture as opposed to one that says, no, you have to know something in order to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonus stop: Goff\u2019s grave in Graceland Cemetery<\/p>\n

4001 N. Clark St., Chicago<\/p>\n

If these five sites don\u2019t satisfy your curiosity about Goff, there are others to visit, including his Paul Colmorgan house in Glenview and Garvey House in Urbana, the latter one of his round house designs. But perhaps the most poignant and poetic stop on a Goff-themed tour is his grave in Graceland Cemetery<\/a>, home to many of Chicago\u2019s famous architects, including Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan.<\/p>\n

At the urging of Goff\u2019s former student Grant Gustafson, the architect\u2019s remains were interred here in 2000, almost 20 years after he died in Texas. Goff left no heirs and his ashes had wound up with one of his patrons, Joe Price. Gustafson, who believed Goff should rest among the other architects who left their mark on Chicago, even designed the curved, triangular gravestone. It fittingly features a fragment of cullet glass, alleged to have been saved from the ruins of Shin\u2019enKan, the Oklahoma home Goff built for Price, which burned to the ground in 1996.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMaterial Worlds,\u201d an exhibition currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, offers a glimpse into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-395526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395526","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=395526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}