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Just in time for summer, the Chicago Architecture Center opens its doors with brand new and updated exhibits, including 10,000 square feet of gallery space full of scale models and building designs.
The CAC has already started the season with the launch of several walking tours, including a monthly tour of the Austin neighborhood.
Visitors to the monthly Austin tours will stroll through Austin’s historic Midway Park and the surrounding neighborhood and learn about late 19th and early 20th century homes, schools, and shop fronts.
Notable architects on the tour include Frederick Schock, William Drummond, and Dwight Perkins. In addition, members of the Austin community will share their stories of the ongoing work to revitalize the neighborhood after a long history of discriminatory housing, divestments, and other challenges.
Austin-based CAC instructor Karen Clapp is excited to bring architectural tours back to her hometown.
“We’re building on the legacy of touring here in the late 1970s and 1980s,” said Clapp.
The Austin House Tours were sponsored by the Austin Schock Neighborhood Association and took place in the 1970s and 1980s in the neighborhood named after the noted architect Frederick Schock, who lived and designed in Austin.
There has been an occasional special tour of Austin since those tours, but the CAC, then known as the Chicago Architecture Foundation, hadn’t had a permanent tour of the area for years.
In 2018, the CAC’s Open House Chicago event spanned some buildings in Austin, and Clapp noticed large numbers of people moving into the neighborhood.
“I turned to my husband and said, ‘It’s great that people are here today, but I want more people to come here more regularly,'” said Clapp. “I had the feeling that our art institutions in the city had to have a more permanent presence on the West Side.”
Clapp, who has been a lecturer at the CAC for around 20 years, began planning a tour of the neighborhood that, according to his own account, took almost two years. The Austin tours concluded just before the end of last year’s pandemic tours and are finally finding an audience this summer.
The Austin area is architecturally rich, and Clapp says the name Shock has a special meaning.
“Just as Frank Lloyd Wright lived in Oak Park and designed many houses in Oak Park, and George Maher lived in Kenilworth and designed many houses there, Frederick Schock lived in Austin and designed many houses and public buildings there. “Said gossip.
Tour participants will see buildings designed by Schock, as well as works by renowned architect Dwight Perkins, who, according to Clapp, designed many schools in Chicago. You’ll also see a building designed by architect Alfred Alschuler who designed the KAM Isaiah Israel Temple in Hyde Park and the now demolished Chicago Mercantile Exchange Building.
Clapp says there are numerous layers to unfold. Four of the Shock Homes are national landmarks, there are two National Historic Districts in Austin, and many of the individual homes have been rated as significant.
“Architecturally and historically, this little corner of West Austin is actually pretty rich,” said Clapp.
Beyond the architecture, the tour will cover the history of the Austin neighborhood, from its development, to its incorporation into Chicago, to the turbulent 1960s and 1970s when the area was red-lineed and blockbusted.
Clapp notes that history is important, but so is the current state of the neighborhood.
“A lot of great, wonderful things are happening here and we’re going to talk about them too,” she said.
After living and raising her family in Austin for 20 years, Clapp is eager to showcase all of the things that make the community special.
“I have a great passion for the invisible Austin Boulevard force field,” said Clapp. “I am happy to share the beautiful places here and the beautiful people here, the architectural and human depth. There are things here that may not be fancy or shiny, but are wonderful. “
Before you go
The Chicago Architecture Center tours Austin take place one Sunday a month at 2 p.m. and last about two hours. The next dates are June 20th, July 18th, August 22nd, September 19th and October 24th.
All tours are instructor-led and each tour will have a homeowner talk about their home. Tours are outside. Due to the current COVID restrictions, tours are currently limited to 12 people. Masks are compulsory.
Tickets are $ 30 for the general public, $ 15 for base CAC members, and are free for donor-level members. Tours depart from the fountain at the east end of Midway Park, 5701 Midway Park.
Further information and online ticket sales can be found here.
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