John and Elizabeth Moutoussamy House designed by John Moutoussamy, Chatham, IL, 1954.

Credit:

Designer(s)

John Moutoussamy

Architect

John Moutoussamy is best known as the designer of the Johnson Publishing Company Building, the only high-rise office building in downtown Chicago with an African American client (publishing titan John H. Johnson, whose growing media empire included Ebony and Jet magazines) and architect (Moutoussamy). Moutoussamy was the first black architect to become a partner in a major firm, Dubin Dubin Black & Moutoussamy.

Commission

1954

Completion

1954

Original Brief

African American architect John Moutoussamy designed this house for his own family in 1954. The house is located in Chatham, an upper middle-class neighborhood with Chicago’s African American economic and cultural elite.

Moutoussamy designed this house in 1954 for himself, his wife Elizabeth, and three children John Jr., Claude Louis, and Jeanne Marie. At the time the house was built, Moutoussamy was working for PACE Associates, while the firm was involved with planning the modernist campus at IIT and the Chicago Federal Center in partnership with Mies van der Rohe.

Current Use

The home continues to be used as a private residence.

References

" New City Design, November 19, 2015.

Bey, Lee. Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side, Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2019.

, 2017.

John and Elizabeth Moutoussamy House

John and Elizabeth Moutoussamy House

Credit

Site overview

How to Visit

Location

Case Study House No. 21

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