in a single afternoon, six gargantuan hand carved limestone eagles were carefully hoisted from their perches that wrapped around three sides of the bunte candy factory water tower prior to demolition. the massive prairie school style factory complex was designed by the notable chicago-based architectural firm...
i spent a few hours the other day photographing any and all alterations that have been made since my last visit a few weeks prior. progress has been made, but not on a large scale - at least as of yet. regardless, i tend to find myself...
notable chicago prairie school architect louis h. sullivan designed builders' hardware for a number his buildings while working with dankmar adler during the 1890's. the non-extant chicago stock exchange building - constructed in 1894 - contained some of his finest hardware designs (the guaranty building...
the highly anticipated bldg. 51 museum artifact catalog will be available for sale - both online and in stores by late summer. the limited edition (print quantity of 500) catalog is divided into three major sections, consisting of artifacts from notable building commissions by architect...
i'm posting a few images of my personal collection...
if my light source went dark, i would be in world of trouble. with a respirator, layer upon layer of clothing, clunky steel toe boots, tool belt and a headband flashlight, i began walking across this vast crawl space filled with criss-crossing structural iron trusses...
the highly anticipated bldg. 51 museum artifact catalog will be available for sale - both online and in stores by late spring. the limited edition (print quantity of 500) catalog is divided into three major sections, consisting of artifacts from notable building commissions by architect...
hopefully within the next week or two, we will be removing the staircase and massive chandelier from the south side chicago jeffery theater lobby. in addition to myself and job site staff, we will have a reporter, photographer and a film crew planted there to...
we managed to secure a total of four matching historically important oversized exterior ornamental cast iron single electric light sconces salvaged from the original wrigley jr. company's chewing gum factory, located at 35th and ashland avenue. as of early 2014, the factory complex continues to...
with camera gear and tripods in hand and around my shoulders, i entered the chicago athletic association building for another highly anticipated afternoon spent photodocumenting the chicago athletic association building and annex - known as the "michigan building" and "madison building" respectively. after arranging my camera...
urban remains spent a good portion of 2009 carefully extracting artifacts from the jarvis hunt-designed lake shore drive athletic club for future use and/or reintegration into the building once it was converted to apartments. that time has come. see below, in article and images. Once threatened...
built on the site of the first brick building in chicago (1837), the 13 story steel frame chicago stock exchange building was designed by the architectural firm of adler and sullivan with falkenau & company as general contractors. the building was completed in 1894 at...
after photodocumenting the chicago athletic association building for weeks now, i focused my camera on the unusual and greatly oversized cast plaster chandelier at the foot of the grand staircase leading to the upper level or balcony of the swimming or "plunge" room. i suspected...
more and more layers are peeled back - week after week - and i'm there to document it with my cameras. the frequency of extensive "remuddlings" that have occurred over the decades in this building are rather astonishing, yet equally depressing in some ways (at...
nearly sixteen years ago, i was attending college during the day and working as an audio engineer at night in a recording studio a friend and i haphazardly piecemealed together in the basement of the historic odin j. oyen building. during the course of organizing the...
the light was right. the scaffolding was in place and easily accessible. i spent a great deal of time documenting the exterior - especially the carved limestone columns and capitals (the stone setter was john arnold), and the art glass windows designed by healy ad...
here are a few more photographs of the chicago athletic association building (henry ives cobb) taken late last week. more to come. [gallery ids="738,739,740,741,742"]...
i managed to get away from the shop this afternoon so i could continue photo-documenting the interior of the athletic club association building while it undergoes its transformation from abandoned club to boutique hotel. although they have an industrial photographer onboard, i told the developers...
after dismantling the false or "drop" ceiling installed during a classic remuddle, the original cast plaster "drooping tip" ceiling was exposed for the first time in decades. unfortunately, the installation of the drop ceiling caused considerable damage to the ornament. i'm glad i was able...
i'm incredibly excited (and equally relieved) after some rather nerve-wracking auction bidding as of recent. i participated in a local auction that offered an amazingly large collection of louis sullivan-designed artifacts from various notable building commissions (e.g., stock exchange, guaranty building, etc.). i managed to...