In many neighborhoods on the South Side, the stone rowhouses of a hundred years ago were lost to urban upheaval, leaving awkward gaps of empty lots in what were once solid streetscapes.

Nowadays cinder-block condos are filling in the gaps with predictable ticky-tack boxes. But on this block we find an unexpected bit of cinder block creativity.

Despite its starkness of the front entry, the house doesn't seem as defensive as the usual cinder block fortress. Instead it has a sort of elegant futurism in the midst of the stuffy ornamentation of the old rowhouses nearby.


Copyright 2010 Matt Bergstrom