Chicago Tudor Revival AF

👀 Northwestern Terra Cotta Co. stock designs bsky.app/profile/tudo...

Woodlawn Ave. looking north from 65th St

64th St. looking west from Kimbark Ave towards Woodlawn Ave.

Old paintings of the area around Woodlawn Ave. between 64th & 65th. Most of the buildings are now gone, but a few remain. (photos by a friend)

Thank you for spotting me 100 years. 150 will be quite the milestone. Sincerely, M. Zaldokas.

White terra cotta panel on a red brick wall. A shield with two crossed swords under a jeweled crown. Extensive blank scroll on the bottom and several salad's worth of leafy greens filling the rest of the space.

Happy birthday! I believe the traditional gift for this age is rando heraldry.

House with circular staircase up to an attic door.

Pulaski

Fascinating indeed. Thanks for the link!

Corner shot of a church in variegated red brick. Main facade on left dominated by Mission parapets, mirrored in stone/concrete main entrance at corner, under a bell tower. Windows are round or quatrefoil, stained glass in tall trio of windows is central section. Sanctuary continues back along side street on right.

And one block away from the Valencia, Smith designed the current Greater Institutional AME Church, 7800 S. Indiana Ave. (1927-28)

Z. Erol Smith *everywhere* in late 1920s Chicago, including the Chicago Bee building and many a toothsome Tudor and Spanish Revival
bsky.app/profile/lady...

Color photo of a two story-corner/courtyard Spanish Eclectic apartment in yellow brick. Up close is one of end of the courtyard's U. Entrance here has pink terra cotta with a little red tile roof at the top. Work has been done on the parapet, which is now plain and a cream brick. To the right, the courtyard and the other end of the U.

Color photo of same 2-story Spanish Eclectic courtyard apartment building. Courtyard is deep and wide, big enough to fit a large entrance section in the middle, with plenty of room to spare on each side. Main entrance topped with decorative bell tower.

Closer-up of main entrance to courtyard apartment complex in previous pics. Central decorative bell tower under tile roof fringed with an arcaded corbel table. In front of is a concrete gate, likely with bench, featuring a balustrade. As before, different shade in sections of top show work done, likely removing ornament or more corbeling. Mandatory Chatham lawn lamp.

Close up of one entrance to the building in previous pics, framed in pink terra cotta. Wreathed columns rise to a multipart arch, which I'm seeing is called a tented or draped arch. Lunette features a chubby quatrefoil.

Hard to convey the sprawling magnificence of the courtyard at Prairie & E. 78th, originally the Valencia Apartments (1926-27, Z. Erol Smith)

Cleaners: A Chicago-inspired Font — The Chicago Neighborhoods CLEANERS is a font that inspired by the Pride Cleaners sign in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood.

Font 21: CLEANERS is inspired by the Pride Cleaners sign in the Chatham neighborhood in Chicago. It was recently announced that Pride Cleaners would be closing, but hopefully the amazing sign and iconic building will be saved 🤞🤞🤞

www.thechicagoneighborhoods.com/fonts/p/clea...

Clearly used the dark side of Force to get a six-pack

Color photo of a detail of a metal frieze featuring an eagle perched in a wreath, its wings stretching out well past the wreath's edge. Eagle has extremely muscular chest and torso.

Me to myself: the looksmaxxing American eagle isn't real; it can't hurt you

The City/County Building:

Always (fine, occasionally) RT Thorne Rooms

black and white print of Minneapolis in an imagined art deco industrial cityscape, multiple shapes of mills and railroads intersecting

"Minneapolis", 1925 lithograph by Ukrainian-American Louis Lozowick, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Chatham is a very special neighborhood, replete with the over-the-top terra cotta beauties that defined the 1920s, but also home to treasures like this cleaners & a slate of other fantastic MCM designs, as I've written about. All of our South Side masterpieces deserve both attention & preservation.

Helsinki cathedral reflected in a wooden door with geometric lions

Decorated entryway with big gilded circle with a light red 23

Gothic amber glass and wood

Art nouveau entryway design like abstracted wings

Doorways of Helsinki

Street View pic of a large two-story Tudor Revival building, entirely faux half-timbered. Central section features deep arched entrance, oriel on second floor, and on third floor cross-gable with V designs around window. Left section also has cross-gable but blank, oriel on second floor. Right section less snazzy.

Sepia photo of same two-story Tudor Revival building in first pic, looking in same basic shape.

Skeet from Ben Panko on 2/4/25: Windsor Farms is going to hit hard

4211 Dover Rd., originally housing the Quarterly Shop, old pic from 1927 (via Library of Virginia). Good call, @btpanko.bsky.social

Color photo of a city alley: trash receptacles, a garage door, common brick, utility pipes. In middle, on a utility pole is a haggard basketball backboard, worn wood with a net made from a milk crate. Slim bits of sky visible on top of pic.

Shamelessly copying @aoife.bsky.social's basketball backboard pics

If you like those, check out the Thymbria. Waiting to get better pics to post but it's at 5001-13 S. King. Beautiful Venetian Gothic.

Color photo of a two-story home clad with smooth limestone blocks. Entrance (on left) has a highly enriched arch above and paneled wood door. Windows on ground floor bay (on right) have surrounds featuring ogee arches, whose points extend to a balcony above. Simpler ornamented arches repeat above bay window and then once asymmetrically above front door. Pyramid roof fronted by newer looking triangle-pointed dormers that go all the way to the front facade. We are in an old fancy neighborhood, home set back from street, with small front yard behind gate and mature tree on parkway in foreground.

Close-up of window surrounds above three bay windows, rising to ogee arches with crocket-like blobs at the tips of the arch. Within each lunette are swirls of leaves in a Gothic style. Above arches is balcony featuring trefoil arches, resembling the silhouettes of gnomes.

The correct number of ogee arches for a residence. 4947 King Dr. (Peabody & Beauley, ca. 1901)

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Weird Details EXPLAINED!
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Murky Permits REVEALED!
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Jensen Architects SORTED!
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Or the annoying Steinb(cough) situation
bsky.app/profile/tudo...

They are broadly called revival homes. A Field Guide to American Houses calls them Eclectic houses then breaks down by which country's traditions are being copied, including Spanish Eclectic and Italian Renaissance.

💯 That sort of light also avoids the sharp tree shadows you can get on super bright days.

YES! Now if we can just arrange for the sun to reach north-facing facades just a few weeks early, we'll be set.

This is why we all love @dmercer.bsky.social. Made my day!

Color photo of twin buildings, one red brick and the other brown, but otherwise exactly they same. Both have gently rounded bays on either side of their centrally located entrances, which are reached by climbing a handful of stairs. The structures meet in a recessed section that appears to connect both buildings.

Color close-up of the entrance to the brown brick building. After climbing a handful of stairs, you reach the entrance to the building, which sits underneath a glorious arch with a mighty keystone. Narrow, rectangular windows flank this, and the address of the building is written in white letters on a glass door. In the transom above can be glimpsed a chandelier.

Color detail of the arch above the door of the red brick building. Each element of the arch, including the large keystone, is encrusted with floral designs and supported by equally ornate decorative brackets. Inside the arch is a glass transom lined with egg and dart molding.

Ad clipped from the November 20, 1904 Chicago Daily Tribune. I have drawn a red box around the following text: "7 ROOMS, 4539 Indiana-av., new and very fine; magnificent decorations, fine light; best apartments ever offered for the money. Open."

Don't you love it when twins wear the same outfit, but in different colors? This pair is even accessorizing with the same door surround! Also incredibly amused by this 1904 ad that swears that these are the "best apartments ever offered for the money." The best EVER!

Architect: Thomas W Wing, 1903

Again invoking the realist, dispirited preservationist's credo: "It could be worse"

Not a surprise but good to confirm!

Color photo of a modest two-story house, side gabled with big half-timbered brown-on-white cross-gable that extends, Storybook-like, through the second floor, seemingly meeting the small gable above the entrance (recessed front door, arched), lower left. Instead of the usual bay window on the ground floor right, there are two separated pairs of casement windows, under a fairly deep shed roof.

Better realtor pic of same home with refreshed facade. Stucco now gray and timbers painted white. Shed roof at ground floor built out into bona fide front porch with square piers giving support.

1304 Graycourt Ave., ca. 1927 (2023 StreetView/2025 Zillow)