Fire And Clay – Will Quam

Many, like this home in Berwyn, bring the same brick from the exterior of the house inside. If having exposed brick saved the homeowner some money on decorating, others found a way to make more money off it. “At the flick of a brick wall today homes are sold, apartments are rented,” wrote the Tribune in 1976. “Landlords everywhere know they can increase the rent a few dollars if an apartment sports the natural look, and they’re sure to mention brick in the advertising.”22 Exposed brick became the buzzword in real estate listings in the 1960s.

It went with everything and every room, giving kitchens “an open-hearth appearance,” turning hallways into “charming background[s],” and giving an authentic character to antique furniture. Want a more modern aesthetic? Just paint it white or have it tuckpointed white for a “striking geometric pattern—in tune with the most futuristic designs.”23 Even those who lived in old buildings with plaster- covered walls didn’t need to be excluded from the exposed brick craze—so strong was the fervor for exposed brick interiors that the Tribune published not one but two different guides for “amateur home decorators” on how to identify and open up a wall of Chicago common brick in your home.24 The exposed brick walls were used for “bringing the outdoors inside and extending the indoors outside” and were paired with complementary natural colors.25 ■ ■ ■ Glazed brick roared back into popularity in this era, offering a vibrant and bold rebuttal to the previous decade’s unobtrusive tans and grays.

Brick and tile manufacturers hit the market with new color ranges meant to evoke an emotional feeling more than just a color, like the Robinson Brick and Tile Company’s “Surf Green,” “Horizon Blue,” and “Sunglow Yellow.”26 Glazed brick and tile allowed designers and building owners to “step across the frontiers of conventionalism into a world bright with new concepts .

. . new dimensions . . . new ideas” on buildings old and new. These products were the perfect material, for example, on the modern new facade of the Checker Taxi Association, 845 W. Washington, which was decked out in a full front of seafoam green and bands of black and white checkers, making the entire building an advertisement.

It was even popular enough that the buttoned-up architecture and engineering firm A.

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A. Ford The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City by Carl Smith OceanofPDF.com Fire and Clay How Bricks Reveal the Hidden History of Chicago Will Quam The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London OceanofPDF.com Publication of this book has been supported by Furthermore, a program of the J.

M. Kaplan Fund. This publication is made possible through support from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2026 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E.

60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2026 Printed in China 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-82810-7 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-82811-4 (e-book) DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226828114.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Quam, Will author Title: Fire and clay : how bricks reveal the hidden history of Chicago / Will Quam. Other titles: Chicago visions + revisions Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2026. | Series: Chicago visions and revisions | Includes bibliographical references and index.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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