Builders of the 12-sided steel-framed glass construction included the first GE dish­washer and a personal airplane hangar.
Builders of the 12-sided steel-framed glass construction included the first GE dish­washer and a personal airplane hangar.

April 5, 2022

Words: Edie Cohen

‘Houses of Tomorrow: Solar Homes from Keck to Today’ Opens at the Illinois Elmhurst Art Museum

For more than four decades Midwest Modernism was synonymous with Chicago architects Keck & Keck. In 1933, brothers George Fred and William designed America’s first glass house for Chicago’s World’s Fair. Named the House of Tomorrow, it was indeed prescient. Steel-framed glass construction derived from local skyscrapers and a focus on solar power predated Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House.

To celebrate the Kecks and its own 25th an­niversary along with the 70-year commemoration of its home in van der Rohe’s McCormick House, Illinois’s Elmhurst Art Museum, 40 minutes west of Chicago, has mounted “Houses of Tomorrow: Solar Homes from Keck to Today.” Running through May 29, the exhibition introduces visitors to the groundbreaking project through Chicago World’s Fair materials, documentary photographs, and blueprints of restoration plans. More of the Kecks’ work is examined through videos, artifacts, and diagrams. All confirm that the House of Tomorrow is very much at home today.

Keck & Keck’s 1933 brochure is on display at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois in “Houses of Tomorrow: Solar Homes from Keck to Today,” running through May 29 and part of the museum’s 25th anni­versary programming.
Keck & Keck’s 1933 brochure is on display at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois in “Houses of Tomorrow: Solar Homes from Keck to Today,” running through May 29 and part of the museum’s 25th anni­versary programming. Photography courtesy of Robert Boyce.

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Builders of the 12-sided steel-framed glass construction included the first GE dish­washer and a personal airplane hangar.
Builders of the 12-sided steel-framed glass construction included the first GE dish­washer and a personal airplane hangar. Photography courtesy of Robert Boyce.
An original postcard rend­ering shows the homes as imagined at their current location in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
An original postcard rend­ering shows the homes as imagined at their current location in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Photography courtesy of Indiana landmarks and collection of Steven R. Shook.

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