Wilmette Grants Landmark Status to House Designed by Harry Weese

A Wilmette home by Harry Weese, the architect who designed Washington DC's metro rail system, recently received a local landmark status.

Wilmette trustees granted the structure at 2801 Iroquois Road a local landmark status during the May 8 Village Board meeting.

“The Robert and Suzanne Drucker Residence is architecturally important as an early work by Harry Weese, designed in 1952 and completed in 1954,” according to village documents.

The house, designed based on geometric relationships, is one of more than 80 houses Weese designed during his lifetime.

“The house is an example of a modern house built during a time in Chicago when only the most forward-thinking architects were designing homes that incorporated Modernist principles,” according to village documents.

Throughout Weese’s career, he advocated for architecture and planning that embraced the social, political and economic realities of contemporary urban life, according to the Art Institute of Chicago website.

Weese was influential in Chicago and nationally, and designed buildings such as Time Life Building, 541 N. Fairbanks Ct., Chicago; the Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist, 55 E. Wacker Dr., Chicago, and the Metropolitan Correctional Center, 71 W. Van Buren St., Chicago.

“Weese designed several homes early in his career, but he subsequently designed hotels, churches and city halls throughout the United States, with his most substantial claim to fame being the Washington DC metro rail system,” according to village documents.

The architect was also among the first to recognize the architectural significances of the warehouses and factories south of the Loop, which was later developed as Printers Row.

Born in 1915 in Evanston, Weese studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. In 1961, he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. He passed away in 1998 at the age of 83.

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