The Chicago Historic Resources Survey, completed in 1995, analyzed the historic and architectural importance of all buildings constructed in the city prior to 1940. While not a "landmark", St. Anselm's church is rated among properties that "possess some architectural feature or historical association that made them potentially significant in the context of the surrounding community". Architectural tours from Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago stop to admire the beauty of our church. Bishop Joseph Perry conducts a tour of south- side churches including St. Anselm's, which he called "our architectural gems... the likes of which we will never see again." 

The church was completed in 1925, at a cost of $350,000. The architect was Charles L. Wallace, out of Joliet, who designed many churches and parish buildings throughout Illinois and Indiana.  St. Anselm's "Romanesque" design was typical of early 20th century Catholicism's "revival" of past architectural styles. Typical of this style are rounded arches of stone, as we see in many of our windows, over the outside entrances, and throughout the two towers. The building is made of Toronto brick and Bedford stone. Typical of this style, the floor plan is in the form of a cross.

Inside, the marble altar rail marks off the sanctuary. The main altar is of veined Carrera marble from Italy, with worshiping angels facing the tabernacle.  Stained glass has been used in churches since the seventh century as a means of teaching biblical passages and doctrines, and peaked in the great cathedrals of the middle ages. Stained glass makers in the 19th century developed new techniques and styles both in Europe and America. In the mid-1800's, the "Munich School" of glass making in Germany developed a style that was widely embraced by Catholics both in Europe and abroad. Munich's stained-glass artists developed a technique of expert painting on glass panels, as opposed to the medieval technique of smaller pieces of colored glass held in a leaded framework (later adapted and modified by the great American designer L.C. Tiffany). The scenes depicted by the Munich school were elaborate figurative scenes of Jesus, biblical stories, and saints. This contrasted with the Gothic styles favored by Protestants which were mosaics and stencils. Usually the Munich school painted the figures in a realistic scene framed by elaborate white and gold columns and canopies. The storytelling images and rich figures of the German studios were used in thousands of churches' windows throughout America, especially among immigrant communities who knew the familiar style from Europe. One of the top studios was the F.X. Zettler Company of Munich, which made the stained glass in St. Anselm's. At the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, a Zettler window won the first prize for stained glass, not the exhibit by the famous Tiffany company. Because of the elaborate and detailed glass painting, staining and etching that is found in Munich School windows, they would be extremely costly to duplicate because of today's high labor cost. Also, today there are only a handful of studios throughout the world that employ glass painters that can execute this type of realistic figure painting.  Both inside and out, the church proclaims its Irish ro ots: the Celtic crosses on the top of the towers and at various other places, shamrocks in stone over the arched entrances, a mosaic strip of green shamrocks against a gold background inlaid on the main altar, and imitation green marble columns as well as pastel green walls. It was built as a mighty building, boldly proclaiming the faith of its original Irish American parishioners. And ever since, it has stood as a mighty sign of hope and light to its parishioners and to the neighborhood of Washington Park.