Henry Dubin "Battledeck" House, Highland Park, Illinois, Perspective

The firm Dubin & Eisenburg was known for its many terracotta and brick apartment buildings in Chicago during the building boom of the 1920s. For his own house in Highland Park, Illinois, however, Henry Dubin designed a novel construction system of large steel flooring plates that were dropped into place with a crane and welded to the steel frame of the home—just like the construction method for battleship decks. From the street, the house is angular and austere, with high brick walls broken only by small strip windows, like the planar facades of houses designed by Austrian architect Adolf Loos. Dubin’s stripped-down Art Deco style employed modern materials, including rubber tile and cork floors, as well as features like continuous strip windows and a covered roof terrace facing the ravine that echo some of the most distinctive houses of the International Style in Europe.