St. Josaphat's in Chicago
- Architect
- William J. Brinkmann
- Year
- 1902
- Style
- Romanesque Revival
- City
- Chicago, IL
St. Josaphat's was built in 1902 to designs by William J. Brinkmann for a Kashubian Polish congregation organized two decades earlier, in 1882, when a 13-member committee approached Fr. Vincent Barzynski for help founding their own parish - having preferred Mass at the German St. Michael's over Barzynski's own Polish-run St. Stanislaus Kostka. The result is one of Chicago's "Polish Cathedral style" churches, built at a scale and opulence meant to rival Rome.
the building
Twin Romanesque towers. St. Josaphat's two massive Romanesque belltowers form a hallmark silhouette on the Lincoln Park skyline, visible for blocks around Southport Avenue.
the style
The church is built in the Romanesque Revival manner, but the operative term locally is the "Polish Cathedral style" - a look calculated for opulence and grand scale, meant to give an immigrant parish a building as monumental as anything in the old country.
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