This fall, U. of I. graduate students in the School of Architecture’s recording historic buildings seminar will prepare drawings and other documentation on the historic Paul Schweikher House in Schaumburg, Illinois, for the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Led by professor Paul Kapp, the team will visit the suburban site to record the building, following a process established for documenting historic buildings by the National Park Service. At semester’s end, the students will submit their final package of measured drawings, field notes, photographs and other materials to the National Park Service’s Historic American Building Survey as their entry into the Charles E. Peterson Prize Competition and for inclusion in the HABS archive at the Library of Congress, the nation’s largest collection of historic architectural, engineering and landscape documentation.
The brick, wood and glass house was designed by Paul Schweikher in 1937 and built the following year as his residence and studio. Influenced by Japanese vernacular forms, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie designs, and 1930s European International Style models, Schweikher developed a unique structure blending modernism with attention to natural materials and engagement with the then-rural site. The Schweikher House is the only structure in Schaumburg currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The house is currently owned by the Village of Schaumburg and operated by the Schweikher House Preservation Trust.
The Historic Preservation Education Foundation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to enhancing public awareness and understanding of historic buildings and sites and encouraging their appropriate preservation, is sponsoring the project.
