Most people can’t name Chicago’s two most prominent church architects.
Evanston architect John Powers is working to correct that.
He is producing “Churches and Chapels of Chicago,” a photographic history due for publication in October. The book will profile 70 historic churches in the Chicago-area Cook and Lake counties, with emphasis on the works of Henry Schlacks and Joseph McCarthy, who is not related to the politician.
Schlacks, who designed part of the Evanston Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave., and McCarthy were prominent architects but are unknown outside Chicago, Powers said. The book will create a historical record of their work.
“Perhaps your two best church architects in Chicago, it doesn’t roll off your mind,” he said. “Joseph McCarthy, what a wonderful church he made in Glenview, who knows that? A hundred years down the road, somebody can look at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview and say, ‘Wow, what a nice church Joseph McCarthy built.'”
Schlacks designed several churches in the Chicago area, including St. John of God Church on the South Side of Chicago and St. Ignatius Church in Rogers Park, and designed and built the south wing of the Civic Center, where Evanston City Council’s chambers currently are located. Schlacks also designed but did not construct the Civic Center’s north wing.
Powers said he has been giving the resident organization Friends of the Civic Center information about Schlacks as they urge the City Council not to sell the the Civic Center.
The Evanston City Council voted three months ago to sell the Civic Center and move city offices to a new site. In March, Friends of the Civic Center filed a landmark nomination for the building. If it is deemed a landmark, the building cannot be demolished.
One Evanston church — St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church, 1615 Lincoln St. — will be featured in the book. Powers said he has more than enough ideas for a sequel, although currently there are no definite plans for one.
“We’re only able to do 70 churches, and there are 392 churches in Chicago,” he said.
Denis McNamara, the book’s writer, said he and Powers selected churches that were “historically significant” and churches whose designs could be applied to future architecture.
“People are … looking to build traditional churches again,” said McNamara, an architectural historian and professor at Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill.
Many Chicago-area residents with connections to the neighborhoods of the archdiocese featured in “Churches and Chapels of Chicago” are excited about the book’s publication, Powers said. The book’s first run will be about 5,000 copies, McNamara said.
“I’ll tell somebody that were doing this book and they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to take a picture of such and such, because that’s where my mom got married,'” Powers said. “We get a lot of people who really want us to capture what they remember about their parish.”
Reach Tina Peng at [email protected].
