Minneapolis Cooperative

Minneapolis Cooperative

This is an out of town example which has intrigued me for a while. It is a rather nicely done, medium sized apartment building, built for mutual ownership in the Twin Cities. It was designed by one Arthur Dahlstrom, who appears to have designed luxury villas, churches and the like for well heeled clients in the area. This also appears to have been designed for a moderately well-heeled clientele. The individual units are reasonably spacious and efficiently planned, with large living rooms with fireplaces and built-in bookshelves, with good relationships to the dining rooms and entries. However, the apartments have what I consider to be a defect, albeit a minor one, in that one must travel through the living and dining room from the main entrance to get to the kitchen or bedrooms. In fact, the only access to the bedroom wing is through the dining room. The kitchens, on the other hand, appear to be well planned, with a breakfast and casual dining nook under a window and there is generous closet space as well.

I am wondering, and hoping, if we have any Twin Cities readers, if any light can be shed on this building, which is hopefully still standing, as I have had no luck finding any references to it.

Reference: The Architectural Forum, September 1925, p. 146.

Corner Buildings - Part I

Corner buildings can take many forms and styles, depending on size, lot, neighborhood and class of apartments. And then there is also the question of whether or not one of the streets is a commercial thoroughfare. Then of, then of course, there is the era in which it was built.

Most often, a corner building will be a six-flat with a three or six-flat attached on the side street. Or a nine-flat with a three or six-flat on the side street. In this case, I am referring to the side street as the side which has a unit facing onto it lengthwise. Usually this is an east-west street as well, but not always, of course.

Our first example is a nine-flat with a six-flat to the rear, in deep red brick, with rather more vertical decoration than typical.

Our next example is one with commercial premises on the first floor facing a major street. This has rather art deco inspired trim in orange brick and limestone. Also note the level change; the cornices have been carried through, but the window heights change based on the lack or presence of the first floor commercial space.

In the first photo you can see the first floor commercial space, with four flats above it, with an attached six-flat to the "rear".

In the second photo you can see the change in levels between the two halves of the building. This was skillfully handled here, with continuous cornices and parapet height for both halves of the building. The detailing is simple, yet done in a workmanlike manner, which unfortunately is somewhat marred by the recent addition of through the wall air conditioning units (at least the
radiators were retained).

Our next example is a rather unique looking building, appearing to be rather neo-classically monumental, yet also, to me, somehow more Midwestern arts and crafts than Chicago. Being in the city, however it has many typical features of a corner building, six units on the main street and six on the side street. Yet it still looks to be that it should be in an area outside of the Chicago planning tradition, not quite conforming to the norms - being on a larger than average lot with massive set backs on the main street parkway may have something to do with this impression I think.

Our last photographic example for today (for there will be more) is of a rather misleading building. From the front or short end/side, it appears to be a rather imposing, even imposingly grand, three-flat, facing onto a deep lawn at the wide parkway, necessitated by the large set-back. Yet it is actually a nine-unit building, as evidenced by the side entry servicing a six-flat with the front entry serving what is effectively a three-flat. It has typical arts and crafts decor, unfortunately some of the sun-room windows have been lost, as have the original entry doors.

Lastly, I leave you with a plan of a corner building. This has two sets of unequally sized and non-mirrored, non-identical six flats. Three of the units are one-bedroom flats, while one is a large two-bedroom unit. Interestingly, the larger one-bedrooms face the side street, while the smaller one bedroom apartment faces the main street or avenue.

The Courtyard Building, Part VI; Courtyard Variations

There are some variants to the standard courtyard building, which, while not rare, are not common, such as the half courtyard. On the other hand, there are some truly rare forms, such as the, as I call it, reverse courtyard - an almost phallic shaped building centered on the lot with an entry courtyard on either side - as if two half courtyard buildings were joined, fused back to back. This has several subforms, I believe one could argue, but I am only going to address one which follows typical courtyard fashion in decor and entrances, as well as the landscaped side entry courtyards. At the bottom plans will show these two variations. Actually, this post will only deal with the half courtyard variation, as I am finding it is too lengthy of a topic to combine postings such as these.

The half courtyard is found throughout the city, where ever lot sizes didn't allow for a full courtyard, or other reason. They are even sometimes built contigiously with another one to form a courtyard from separate buildings (especially in the two-story variant[s]. They can vary from a typical sized half building (50 foot lot, maybe even smaller sometimes) to fairly large, and even grand buildings, with grandly architectural pretensions. At the bottom of this first section is a plan of the typical half-courtyard building.




Our first example is a modest side street red brick example of a half-courtyard. It, rather unusually, has a front bay window, due to the residential nature of the street, with fairly large set-backs and deep parkway. It has the typical front living room and dining room unit of the average courtyard, and in this case, half-courtyard.

The second example is also a fairly typical side street building, albeit a 20's building of butter yellow brick with neo-classical commercial detailing, typical of the period, along with some moorish, medieval and other hollywood inspired fanciful decoration of limestone.


Our next building is also a side street building of butter yellow brick, but this time with full on art deco detailing, if in a rather classical manner. Which of course, is the origin of much 1920's design, despite it's modernity.

The last of these side-street buildings is more of a blond brick, but similarly toned, with a somewhat wider lot. This one sporting more chaste decor and many bays along the side of the court. I see that there is a chimney at the side. One suspects that there are lovely wood-burning fireplaces withing. I suspect that there are none, at most a decorative mantel at most.

This next example is a bit grander, and certainly much more architectonically oriented. It is entered through a charming entryway with gas light of wrought iron, sports neo-colonial balconies, small, precise windows precisely located with simple, chase cornices. There is a certain precision to the detail, which is all very rigid, almost mannered, which is rare in Chicago, to find something this manneristic, however, it's being in the Golden Rectangle of Hyde Park should explain that. Being in Hyde Park, of this era, there was often a higher architectural quality achieved than elsewhere in the city (often, in fact, the south side exceeds the north, particularly the lakefronts - the lakefront areas which are now au courant - architectually in this era).

Here is another view, showing the ivy covered walls enclosing the courtyard and one of the faux gas lights, the sign of 70's and 80's condominium conversions in many buildings across the city, later banned by Peoples Gas (many of them were done* without permission or permits)

*Installed, I mean to say.


Our last example hails from the North Lakefront, Rogers Park to be exact, which is a more typically Chicago building. It has a typical vocabulary for Chicago residential architecture; sunrooms, gables, buff brick and limestone trim. All somewhere in or at the intersection of Prarie Style, Jungendstil and Craftsman aesthetics.




Here we have the plan of a typical half courtyard building. The units are simple, modestly sized, if not small, with the largest unit, as is typical, at the front facing the street, similarly laid out and sized middle units and a "special" or differently planned apartment at the back, facing the rear of the courtyard and the alley.

Sherman Gardens

Sherman Gardens is another of Holsman, Holsman, Klekamp and Taylors large cooperative projects. This one is probably their highest density design, with three mid-rise buildings around a landscaped courtyard in downtown Evanston. The land plan of this is quite interesting, being in a trapezoidal block, which however, they were not able to get all of, which means that there are interloping buildings within it.


As you can see from the aerial view, the three buildings are clustered around a central courtyard. Two of the buildings take a similar dumbbell plan while the third takes an ell shaped plan. The buildings also have many units with balconies facing onto the court (as well as onto the surrounding streets), which have canted, fluted glass fronts as part of the railing system.

East View into Court

View into CourtBalcony View

The construction system is the same as their other projects, however, it appears that Sherman Gardens was built with a higher-income tenancy in mind, as there are some grander moderne flourishes to the entries, sculptural panels screening the service stair windows and a main entry from Sherman into the court. The buildings also have some larger unit combinations - maisonette units in a few of the building.

Lobby Entry View
Lobby Entry View
Main Entry View

View of Main EntryView through Main Entry Vestibule

The Courtyard Building, Part V - Courtyards de Luxe

This post is dedicated to the ultra large courtyard building, which I am giving the terminology of Courtyard de Luxe (or perhaps a taxonomy of Courtyard Giganticus) of which there are several well known and lesser known examples throughout Chicago.


The first of these is the legendary or near notorious Tudorbethan Park Gables of Indian Boundary Park, which is one of the very finest examples of both the style and of a large courtyard, in this case a double-courtyard in fact. In many cases, unusually, the exterior decor here carries into the interior, carrying the theme of gothicism inside with vaulted ceilings and beamed rooms.
And I'm not even mentioning it's neighbor, the Park Tudor, which has more of a castellated, gothick feel than Park Gables.


The next example in this post is The Sterling Apartments, probably less well known, in fact, as much as unknown I would say. This one is of the single-courtyard type, but with multiple entries along the front and sides, as well as off of the side courtyard and it runs from side street to side street, for an entire block front. As you can see from only half of the floor plan it is a large building with a variety of accomodation types, from studios to two-bedroomed suites.



Some other examples of these large types can be found in Kenwood, South Shore, Beverly and other areas (such as Uptown-Buena Park, in the Pattington) which were upper middle class.

The Courtyard Building, Part IV

After covering the basics with the courtyard building, we're now moving on to the courtyard itself. The best of these buildings were built on wider than average (or multiple) lots, which enable the courtyards to be exceptionally wide (Park Gables in Rogers Park for instance). One disadvantage to the design of these buildings is the "back side" of the buildings, with the service entrances, back stairs & etc. When they were built, deliveries were common, classism was much greater and there were servants and more stay at home householders to take receipt of deliveries and keep the back entries necessary.

But this is mere digression, since we were (well, are) discussing the courtyard themselves. The best of these are lushly and elegantly landscaped, and by this time have mature plantings, perhaps maintained lovingly by tenants or landlords.


Our first example is a nicely maintained, but rather plan example - the shot was taken in spring. Part of the reason for it's not having heavy landscaping is the width, which is quite narrow, as well as it's north-facing orientation, which prevents sunlight from fostering many plants.

In our next example, the courtyard is simply landscaped, but comes across as both warmer and lusher; two factors enhance this - the south facing building gets more light then the first example, while the lower building height allows more light from the east and west in (the first building has an English basement, while this one has a conventional first floor and partial height, if you will, basement).

The next example has landscaping which nearly conceals the entire building from view - while it makes the building less visible, it does provide shade and helps to keep the apartments cool. In fact, sometimes the landscaping and trees make summertime photography impossible. I will have to make some winter time treks to photographically document many buildings after my summer time reconnaissance missions.

The last example has a rather nice balance of landscaping - ground cover, tree's, etc in a fairly wide and sunny (west facing) courtyard. The lawns and plantings are all well tending and lovingly designed to compliment the building.

Odd Duck Three-Flats

One of the more fun things of being an apartment building spotter is spotting odd duck, sore thumb, missing tooth or mismatching buildings. They can be the result of tear downs, unbuilt lots (aka land banking) or just odd circumstances in urban history. Often, they take the form of three flats, which today's post will focus on, in specific, what I am calling 'symmetrical' three flats, with a symmetrical front and side entry (or center entry, with an English Basement set up).

Our first example of this is actually the most "typical" example in it's detailing and decoration; a buttery orange-yellow brick, an octagon bay front (also, somewhat related to a bungalow in this respect). It sports it's original windows and front door and chaste classical trim, albeit of a medieval/heraldric type.


Our next example is a step up, if you will, into a more typically 20s neo-classical style - this time colonial in blond brick (very typically Chicago however, in this color choice). Here we have three windows on the front, chippendale window heads and quoins, all in limestone. This aesthetic is typical of "higher class" apartment houses from this period. Many 1920s apartment buildings feature this sort of decoration, as we shall see in further examples.


Here in our third example, we have a continuation of style and an increase in scale and granduer, although in this case the decoration seems to be a bit earlier, in a teens or early proto-deco manner (and with interesting esses in the third floor window key's. This example also ditches sash (i.e. double-hung) windows in favor of inward swinging casements.


In our fourth and final (yes, I'm sorry, it's the last one for today) example, we have what is in some ways the grandest, yet most domestic and homey of the four. This one is in red brick with a very wide facade, which most likely accommodates both living room and dining room in front. It has a very domestic neo-colonial cornice, friezes, window keys, divided lite windows and garlands in limestone as well as a simple awning or portico above the entrance. There is also a false roof or gable, which probably was originally slate or tile, but is now asphalt shingles.


I realize that I've cheated a bit in this entry, or used a false title, yeah, I was dishonest, as it was really more about symmetrical facade three-flats rather than their odd duck status, although each of these examples is on it's own, with no directly similar buildings around, which doesn't show up well in the photographs - perhaps more context should be added, but I do hope you've enjoyed this, dear reader...