George McClellan, Chicago, IL, architect
Day Construction Company, Indianapolis, IN, contractor
This past weekend, the University of Illinois hosted Mom’s Weekend in Urbana-Champaign. My son and I snapped this picture in front of the Phi Kappa Tau house, whose exterior brick walls created an alluring backdrop for an obligatory Mom’s Weekend pic. With such texture and visual interest seen in its skintled brickwork exterior, I couldn’t help but dig for further info on the architectural history of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house.
The Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house, built between 1927 and 1928, is uniquely angled on a corner lot and known for its soaring two-story main hall and stunning skintled brickwork. Its design was reportedly principally Georgian Revival in style, but borrows from Italian Renaissance Revival style in its series of arched first floor paired doors that lead to its front terrace. A gambrel roof tops a projecting central front entry, ornamented with stone surrounds. Pedimented dormers punctuate a slate roof on both wings that reach out from the prominent central entry.
Of note is the fraternity house’s brick exterior. To add visual interest to a building, architects often introduced ornamental brickwork into a design. Skillful bricklayers could create unusual textures through ornamental brick patterns (herringbone or basketweave patterns are common) or rough, skintled brickwork. Skintled brickwork, found in the Phi Kappa Tau house, is an innovative wall technique originated by architects and bricklayers in Chicago that features brick walls that appear charmingly uneven. Both headers (the short end of the brick) and stretchers (long end) are laid randomly to project outward, adding an artistic character to the wall surface. This unevenness, with no hard and fast rules, brought a fresh and new approach that was contrary to traditional precise bricklaying. Buildings with skintled brickwork utilize common brick as their principal wall material. Prior to skintled brickwork’s invention, common brick was used only for utilitarian side walls and rear walls of building, not the fronts of residences.
Skintled brickwork emerged as a technique in 1919 when the Chicago Brick Exchange pushed for the use of common brick, a durable yet inexpensive material. The exchange began work with the Chicago Housing Association, which desired to meet Chicago’s increasing demand for moderately priced homes in a highly competitive and congested housing market. The association began experiments to incorporate inexpensive common brick, perceived to be a crude material, into residential designs. In order to make common brick appealing to home buyers, architects introduced irregular projections to cast shadows on the wall surface. The projections played with light and shade, adding a beautiful decorative effect.[i] This new way of bricklaying brought popularity to the use of common brick in the small-house market. In 1922, the Common Brick Manufacturers’ Association produced a book of plans in hopes of popularizing acceptance of common brick homes for “better building.”[ii] In 1928, Western Architect reported that there were over 900 skintled brick houses in the Chicago area alone. Most were in the suburbs within wooded settings, considered ideal for the rustic appearance of the brick.[iii]
In 1928, the Common Brick Manufacturer’s
Association Monthly Digest reaffirmed that common brick was one of the lowest
priced building materials in use and “capable of rendering satisfactory service
for hundreds of years when properly used.”[iv]
Architect George McClellan, a prolific designer of Chicago Bungalows in pressed
and common brick, found an experimental outlet for skintled brickwork in his
Phi Kappa Tau house design.
[i] “They Said It Couldn’t be Done.” Popular Mechanics. Vol. 52, October 1929, p. 704.
[ii] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit No. 23676 dated March 2, 1928. Ledger Book South 43, p. 595. Two-story brick residence, 35x30x28, Cost $10,000.
[iii] Stoddard, Ralph P. “Skintled Brickwork: A Chicago Development.” Western Architect. December 1928, p. 255.
[iv] Monthly Digest No. 86 of Conditions in the Common Brick Industry. Published by the Common Brick Manufacturers’ Association, January 1, 1928.
Prior to moving to their new home at 310 North Gregory Drive (formerly Stadiium Drive) in 1928, Phi Kappa Tau operated at 410 East Green Street (now Skylight Court).
The following articles appeared in The Daily Illini during the planning and construction of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity House in 1927 and 1928. The Daily Illini archive serves as a go-to source for discovering the history of the University. You can check out the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection through the link below, and please consider a donation to this archive:
https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=cl&cl=CL1&sp=DIL&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN——–
For further info on Fraternity and Sorority House Architecture at the University of Illinois see
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500202_text