645 Meacham Rd
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007, USA

Paul Schweikher House and Studio - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Paul Schweikher House and Studio, although just Short of fifty years old / is of exceptional significance e 1) as a structure e which embodies distinctive e characteristic s of the period. Schweikher's house and studio o represent s a superbly-designed synthesis s of Prairie School design feature s with those of the international l Style, American vernacular, and Japanese architecture, and 2) as a building g that possesses high artistic value. The house is acknowledged to be distinguistied work j f architsctural value which evoked from the time of construction n and continue s to evoke accolades.

Paul Schweikher has not received the global recognition of Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe, but is acknowledged among members of the architectural profession and critic s to have had considerable influence and to have made an important contribution to the history of architecture. There have already been exhibit s and publications on Schweikher and the architecture of the Thirties, Fortie s and Fifties. In 1984, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies i n the Fin e Art s and the Ar t Institut e of Chicago sponsored an exhibition on Schweikher and William F. Deknatel and published Architecture in Context. The Avant-Garde in Chicago's Suburbs. The project s grew out of an oral and video history conducted by the Art Institute: "100 Chicago Architects: 1920-1970." The surface is being scratched on the architecture of the period, and there is in question thai: Schweikher's Roselle house can offer considerable insights.

Schweikher, currently retire d and 83 years old, has had an impressive career. he has won several awards, chaired the Department of Architecture at two prestigious schools, Carnegie Ellon University and Yale University, seen his work included in numerous articles, books, and exhibit s over the years and receive d widespread professional recognition. Why then is his name not an everyday word? To quote Paul Spring:

Architect s become famous by establishing a style. Talent is necessary, but showmanship also helps a lot. Wright is nearly as famous f o r his hat and cape and his high-handed imperious manner as for his designs, and Mies van der Roche was almost as well-known for his fat cigar s and for his cryptic comments aa f o r his buildings. Paul Schweikher has no such personal affectations. His designs aren't really pigeonholed either. But they do convey some of the same resolution, balance, and wholeness as the buildings designed by architect s who are require d reading."7

Numerous other well-regarded professional s hold Schweikher in high regard. John Zukowsky (Curator of Architecture, the Art Institute of Chicago) comments regarding Schweikher's importance. In describing Schweikher's house, he says, "It is important as being the home of one of America's more important architectural figure s of the mid-twentieth century." Richard Longstreth (Chairman, Committee on Preservation, Society of Architectural Historians agrees, noting Schweikher's "important contribution to American modernism" during the period. ^ Frederick Gutheim (the editor of two volumes on Frank Lloyd Wright's writings. On Architecture and In the Cause of Architecture and adjunct profess r of American Studies at Georgetown University) sums up Schweikher's role quit e simply. "...He is one of the most significant figures in the development of Chicago (and Midwest) architecture. "

Robert Paul Schweikher was born in Denver, Colorado in 1903. He began his studies in electrical engineering at the University of Colorado After a brief time, (1921-22) he followed his future wife to Chicago, married and joined the office of Lowe and Bollenbacher (which became Granger and Bollenbacher). During the 2% years (1923-24) he spent there he progressed from office boy to detailer to an architectural superintendent he admires as a master to this day. mastery of the history of architecture, but what fascinate d him particularly was Adler' s sharp eye. " I think I learned scale and I learned to see, to know what I was looking at. This could be historically, it could on ship of one thin g to has commented that "Adle r could see a %" difference i n a drawing--the width of a line- - marvelous."15 Schweikher became the detail man in Adler' s office, developing a precision i n drawing detail s that was to become much admired. To quote a colleague of his, Philip Will, Jr., "he was the most precis e draftsman I have ever known. It is easy to understand how he became a great detailer. Nothing was left undrawn."

After two years in Adler' s office, and attending nigh t school at the Parson's Atelier of the Chicago Architecture Club and then the Chicago Atelier, Schweikher began his formal architectural studies at Yale. He was drawn there because of the school's Beaux Art s orientation, though in an interview he notes, " I was probably one of those who helped break it up because I thought I was part of a new spirit of the times." At Yale, he won a Matcham traveling scholarship, which enabled him to experience first-hand some of the major monuments of European modernism by Le Corbusier, Mies and Van der Vlugt. They included the Weissenh of seidlung in Stuttgart and the Van Nell e Factory in Rotterdam.