Self-Portrait
The architectural photographer Barbara Karant turns her camera on her house in Bucktown—and on her rescued greyhounds.
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Karant eventually bought an 1890s building in Bucktown—a single-story structure of Chicago common brick that at one time housed a grocery store; attached in back was a frame shanty. "I liked the neighborhood," Karant says. "There were a lot of creative people, and it wasn't as homogenous as Lincoln Park or DePaul." It was quiet and close to the expressway, to downtown, and to Karant's photography studio in the West Loop. "I live in a quadrant of Bucktown that doesn't have a lot of activity," she says, "but it's only a ten-minute walk to go to a restaurant or a bar or shopping."
Valerio was fascinated by the history of the property. "The house is neatly divided in half," he explains. "The southern portion of Chicago common brick is one of the few remaining examples of 19th-century construction that predates the raising of all the city's streets, which was crucial to draining the swamp that was Chicago. Steps adjacent to the sidewalk take you down to the original grade of this area of the city." Owners were responsible for filling in the rest of their property, and initially many did not.
The frame building in back was not salvageable, Karant explains. "It took the contractor about 12 minutes to knock it down and cart it off the site," Valerio says. To replace the shanty, they built a mirror image of the structure in front using black ground-face concrete block—the inexpensive modern-day equivalent of Chicago common brick. "The materials nicely connect the two centuries," Valerio says, "and celebrate the revival of the neighborhood."
Originally in front, the entrance to Karant's house is now five steps down from the sidewalk along the side of the redesigned structure, where the brick and the concrete block meet. And whenever Karant walks in, she is pleased with what she sees. "Joe did a great job of giving me a wonderful house within the confines of what I could afford," Karant says. "I got the wood floors; I got the fireplace. It's a simple house, but it looks really good, and I like the quality of the light."
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Photography: Barbara Karant; photo styling by Diane Ewing
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