St. Gabriel Catholic Church, An Overlooked South Side Gem

CANARYVILLE — Chicago architecture expert Lee Bey has written a new book detailing the South Side’s architectural gems, which are too often ignored when talking about the city’s rich architectural history.

Block Club Chicago is highlighting some of the buildings photographed and chronicled by Bey in “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side,” (Northwestern University Press, $30). It is available here.

Today’s focus is St. Gabriel Catholic Church at 600 W. 45th St., near the old Stockyards in Canaryville.

Credit: Lee Bey

Lee Bey writes:

“St. Gabriel’s architect, John Wellborn Root, tossed aside the usual neo-Gothic and Victorian frou-frou of the day, giving the congregation a bold-looking brick building with deep rooflines and a 160-foot corner tower. Built for Irish immigrant workers, St. Gabriel has a simplified Romanesque design that emphasizes the edifice’s form and geometry rather than its adornment, giving the century-old church a hint of modernity that is still evident today. Root is said to have based the design on that of a medieval Romanesque church in Toulouse, France.”

RELATED: Lee Bey Chronicles South Side’s Architectural Beauty In ‘Southern Exposure’ — Something Black Chicagoans Have Long-Celebrated

Buy Lee Bey’s “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side,” for $30 here.