Best Prairie School Structure Not by Frank Lloyd Wright, Reader's Choice: the former Cornell Store and Flats

Lloyd Degrane

Reader’s Choice

The former Cornell Store and Flats

Its Grand Crossing neighborhood is rough and industrial, and Dumpsters litter the vacant lot next door (marked by a faded sign that reads, “God Loves You, Brunt Bros. Transfer.”) But the former Cornell Store and Flats, a small gem designed by Walter Burley Griffin in 1908, survives. It deserves better: Ignore the tall, black, spiked metal fence and imagine an uninterrupted strip of glass where the three large glass block windows are now. Notice how the cornice seems to float over the roof line, just above a succession of strong Prairie-style piers. The rear elevation is a bonus, a rich interplay of openings and projections centered on an arched entrance that simultaneously subverts and enriches the linear bias of the building’s composition. Then close your eyes. You may sense the spirit of the Chicago of a century past—a place that still seemed freshly minted, where even an unexceptional residential neighborhood like this once was might claim its share of grace.  1232 E. 75th. —Lynn Becker

Readers’ Choice

Schurz High School

 3601 N. Milwaukee, schurzhs.org.

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