At Home in Chicago: A Living History of Domestic Architecture

Author Patrick F. Cannon and photographer James Caulfield will present an inside look at some of the Chicago area’s most distinctive and architecturally-significant residences – including Riverside’s Coonley Estate.

This presentation, based on Cannon and Caulfield’s recently published book, At Home in Chicago: A Living History of Domestic Architecture, will span the history of Chicago residential architecture. The authors travelled across the metropolitan region to create an eye-opening look at the city’s 200-year history through different home styles. They inspected houses built before the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, walked through the mansions that rose during the Gilded Age, explored apartments finished before the Depression, and scrutinized mid-century and new-century homes. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Coonley Estate is featured in their book and will be given special emphasis for this Riverside presentation.

Patrick F. Cannon had a long career as a publicist, journalist, and editor and has led tours of Chicago-area architecture for more than four decades. After retiring, Patrick decided to build upon a long interest in architecture by writing about Chicago area architects and architecture. Since the publication of his first book, Hometown Architect: The Complete Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park and River Forest, in 2006, he has since published five more books in collaboration with one of Chicago’s preeminent architectural photographers, James Caulfield. Their combined effort on The Space Within: Insider Great Chicago Buildings received the Gold Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards.

James Caulfield has been a professional photographer for more than 40 years, creating compelling images of people, places, and things both in the U.S. and abroad for advertising and direct clients alike. His interest in architectural subjects grew out of his own efforts restoring a Fromann & Jebsen-designed bank in Chicago, a mid-century modern home in Glencoe, and a bungalow in Berwyn. This passion for preservation led James to volunteer his services to the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust in Oak Park by documenting the buildings on the Trust’s annual house walk, Wright Plus. There, he met architectural writer Patrick F. Cannon in 2004 and the two have collaborated on six books. Their most recent is At Home in Chicago.

Join us for a visually engaging presentation of Chicago homes that spans the decades with varied architectural styles from Richardson’s Glessner House and Wright’s Robie House to van der Rohe’s 860-880 Lake Shore Drive and Jeanne Gang’s Aqua tower.