After the Great Fire of 1871, Chicago became a city of brick.
Photographer: NurPhoto/NurPhotoFor Lovers of Brick, Chicago Is a Wonderland
Brick aficionado Will Quam leads tours through the neighborhoods of Chicago to showcase the humble building material that saved the Second City.
In the tony Chicago neighborhood of Lincoln Park, Will Quam spots a decorative red tile affixed to a brick wall. The tile’s relief depicts a child swept up in a breezy forest framed by delicate flowers; a minuscule embossed mark on its edge reads “Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company.” The name might not mean much to most passersby, but to the eagle-eyed Quam, it’s another piece of a citywide puzzle he’s been putting together for years.
When it comes to architecture tours, Chicago hosts an embarrassment of riches. You could glide down the river gazing up at skyscrapers like Jeanne Gang’s glass-clad St. Regis — the tallest skyscraper designed by a woman — or the ornate spectacle of the white-tile Wrigley Building. A walk through Hyde Park would deliver Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie-style Robie House and Henry Ives Cobb’s Gothic University of Chicago campus. But the walks offered by Quam, a Minnesota native and a former middle-school theater teacher, operate on a more modest if no less rewarding scale. Since 2018, he’s been leading “Brick of Chicago” tours that get up close and personal with the humble building material that defines much of the city’s residential and commercial architecture.