Edward Keegan: Pope Leo XIV's childhood home an example of the ordinary architecture Chicago does well
The elevation of Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost to Pope Leo XIV earlier this month remains a shock.
That's because the papacy is something so extraordinary that almost none of it fits neatly with who he seems to be. So many aspects of this Holy Father are just so ordinary. To listen to him talk is to hear the rhythms of any Sunday morning in a Chicago parish church. His wry smile seems full of love and patience, but he's obviously knowing and not necessarily approving of everything that happens on his watch. And that's OK, because we know he still loves us.
Neither Leo's childhood home or church will be named landmarks on their architectural merits, but they both represent some dominant themes in Chicago's more acclaimed buildings — that is, a genuine sense of the ordinary.
The pope's childhood home in Dolton is nothing if not modest. Built in 1949, the 1,050-square-foot home is tiny — especially when you imagine the Prevost family of five living within its simple brick walls. It's a variation on the Cape Cod, a classic American form that was replicated across America in the years following World War II. But the use of Chicago common brick on each facade clearly places the home here; many similar homes outside the Chicago area were clad in wood. The raised first floor suggests that the basement was likely used for significant living spaces, although it's my speculation that the Prevost family spent large amounts of time downstairs. If they did, I would expect plastic slipcovers on the furniture in the upstairs living room.
While modest, the Prevost home sits amid a suburban tract development with similar small lots and houses. Even three-quarters of a century after their construction, not much has outwardly changed.
Just a three-minute drive or a 15-minute walk away is Leo's childhood parish church, the former St. Mary of the Assumption in the Riverdale neighborhood. In a city with a wealth of spectacular churches, the pope did not attend one of them. There's no question that great art and architecture can enhance faith, but St. Mary of the Assumption is proof that it's hardly necessary. The church's expression is quite ordinary.
The parish dates to 1886 with early structures built in 1917, but the existing church structure on South Leyden Avenue and East 137th Street was constructed in 1957, when Prevost would have turned 2. The most noteworthy aspect of the building is its two-story arched stone entrance with a deeply recessed rose window above that frames a statue of Mary.
The church does not represent the high modernism that many parishes in the Chicago Archdiocese embraced during this period. Might being raised amid this architectural austerity have inspired the young Rev. Robert Prevost to seek out missionary locales such as Peru for his ministry?
In architecture, like religion, it seems we're always looking for the extraordinary. But it's hard to recognize the extraordinary until we clearly see the ordinary. Any city or community contains many buildings — and most of them are absolutely ordinary. One essential factor in Chicago's architecture has been its unapologetic embrace of the ordinary. That's one important reason why the city's designs have been so influential and why our architecture is considered quintessentially American. It's meant to impress, but only so much. And I think it's one reason we immediately recognized the new pope as our own.
For almost two centuries, much of Chicago's architecture has focused on pragmatic and functional concerns, creating forms in the 19th and 20th century that are readily replicable.
My favorite Chicago building has always been H.H. Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store, which was demolished in 1930. Its rough-hewn stone walls and simply articulated windows and stringcourses were absolutely extraordinary in their ordinariness. Completed in 1887, it declared a straightforward approach to architecture whose progeny would include structures across the country. Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building owes a lot of its brain and brawn to the earlier example, one of the few times that Sullivan acknowledged the influence of another building and its architect.
While seldom noted as such, much of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's work was quite ordinary. In fact, the American phase of his career, which spans from his arrival at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1938 through his death in 1969, was about creating the glass and steel aesthetic that defines architecture during that period. Whether we're talking about his campus at IIT, his apartments buildings at 860-880 N. Lake Shore Drive, or the Loop's Federal Center, each of these is quintessentially ordinary. And countless office and apartment buildings around the globe owe their aesthetic to these models created here.
In Chicago, whether it's architecture or Catholicism, we do ordinary very well. And I think it's one reason we now call Pope Leo XIV our very own.
Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan's biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
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