C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 11 DANIEL BLUESTONE The politics of preserving place In Chicago’s bungalow belt local knowledge is helping to guide policy for preserving architectural heritage, galvanise citizenship and strengthen the fabric of local communities. Historical analysis of everyday housing, urban preservation policy and political action in Chicago have gone hand in hand with the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative, launched by the city in September 2000. Chicago planners and policy makers came to realise that the fate of the city’s stock of affordable single-family housing was inextricably linked to the fate of Chicago bungalows built in the early decades of the 20th century. They established grant programmes and property tax incentives to encourage bungalow rehabilitation and energy conservation.They also developed design guidelines that help protect architectural integrity while ensuring that bungalows would provide accommodation into their second century and beyond. Long appreciated as an extremely popular housing form by builders, realtors and middle- and lowermiddle class homeowners, the Chicago bungalow had received only limited historical consideration from architectural historians. Between 1910 and 1930 Chicago developers built tens of thousands of one and one-and-one-half-storey brick bungalows on large tracts of land previously occupied by farms and prairie fields.1 These new bungalow neighbourhoods represented a major innovation in Chicago urbanism. Here a new style of house, unprecedented in the previous century, provided Chicago homebuyers of moderate means with extraordinary levels of domestic comfort made possible through innovative systems of heating, plumbing, and electricity. Generally rectangular in plan, with the narrow end facing the street, the bungalow mass was dominated by low-pitched overhanging roofs. The front elevations had face brick, with stone trim, while the side and rear walls were constructed of common brick. Expansive windows openings flooded interiors with natural light. Small porches generally occupied the front and the rear of the house.2 New residents of the bungalow neighbourhood onWest Argyle Avenue in 1922 Bungalows designed by AxelV Teisen and built in 1917–18 onWest Grace Street in Chicago’s Irving Park Gardens neighbourhood
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