A Simple Plan
Fig. 1. The front elevation of the Paul Schweikher House, Schaumburg, Illinois, 1938, showing, left to right, the studio, carport, entry breezeway, bathroom windows, and secondary bedroom. Except as noted, photographs are by James Caulfield, © James Caulfield Archive. All photographs courtesy of the Paul Schweikher House, Schaumberg, Illinois. Saltbox, adobe, shotgun. Each of these vernacular architectural styles conjures a corner of the country. So, too, do H. H. Richardson’s shingled summer villas in New England, Addison Mizner’s Mediterranean mansions in Florida, and the desert-embracing work of Richard Neutra in Palm Springs, California. When it comes to significant residential architecture in Illinois, the work of David Adler, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe immediately springs to mind. But the state is also home to the under-sung modern designs of architect Paul Schweikher. One of the most characteristic is the home and studio west of Chicago that the Denver-born, Yale-trained architect built in 1938 (Fig. 1). The long, lean structure’s profile and interior disposition reflect a highly personal approach to space, one that tapped into aspects of traditional Japanese design and the hallmarks of the Prairie school of architecture. Fig. 2. The foyer looking out to the studio wing. The floor and walls are made of Chicago common brick, historically used only as a structural material, not decoratively. The console table, built of redwood, hides a radiator. The son of musicians, Schweikher initially studied electrical engineering at the University of Colorado, where he met his future wife, Dorothy Miller, at a party. When Dorothy graduated from the University of Denver and headed to Chicago for a job as a medical laboratory technician, Schweikher followed. After working as a bookkeeper in a bank, Schweikher— who had demonstrated drawing skills as far back as high school—sought work as