24 Jul

Posted at 18:27h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, New Acquisitions, New Products by

reorganizing the bldg. 51 chicago architectural ornament archive has given me incentive to reshoot any and all historically important artifacts previously on loan, display, or in storage. it's immensely gratifying to reacquaint myself with the ornament (and its history) as it makes its way into...

07 Jul

Posted at 22:13h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

                    adler & sullivan’s wainwright tomb - located in bellefontaine cemetery st. louis – was originally constructed for charlotte dickson wainwright, the wife of ellis wainwright, who’s building was designed by the same firm a year before the tomb was completed in 1892. shortly after construction...

04 Jul

Posted at 19:29h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by

  if i recall correctly, i salvaged an old pharmacy located in east chicago sometime in 2006. the family-owned business and the 1920's building housing it, shut down after a walgreens moved in around the corner. while salvaging the drugstore - or what was left of it...

02 Jul

Posted at 21:20h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions by

        in 1951, crombie taylor – then acting director of chicago’s institute of design – worked with newly-appointed photography instructor aaron siskind to develop a photographic study or survey of commercial and residential buildings designed by the firm of dankmar adler and louis sullivan.   over...

26 Jun

Posted at 20:46h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

when it came to salvaging architectural ornament, chicago's richard nickel was exacting, tedious, and methodical, both in preparation and execution, on any and all demolition sites. an invaluable example of this approach (rarely seen since) lives on in the form of nickel's "ornament "scrapbook," which...

25 Jun

Posted at 21:02h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by

a found a bag of diminutive stainless steel letters and numbers the other day. completely slipped my mind i salvaged them over 10 years ago from veterans administration lakeside hospital (1950). i believe schmidt, garden, and erickson were the architects. [caption id="attachment_38317" align="alignleft" width="900"] the brushed...

23 Jun

Posted at 03:03h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

fatigue and restlessness from spending too much time digitizing photographs, slides and ephemera on chicago's architectural past has reinvigorated me to resume my work, or rather, photographic studies on the city's architectural ornament through the use of my camera and zoom lenses. the intimacy i feel...

21 Jun

Posted at 22:58h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

continued digitization of chicago architect john vinci's kodachrome and/or ektachrome archive remains a top priority in 2018. to see the first two installations or galleries of images from this ever-growing collection (over six-hundred completed as of this writing), please click on the links below. the color photographs were taken...

15 Jun

Posted at 18:45h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

the following john vinci slides paint the demolition of adler & sullivan's schiller building or garrick theater (completed in 1892) in full color, thanks to the use of kodachrome, which was the first commercially successful color film praised since the great depression for its sharpness, archival durability, and...

14 Jun

Posted at 21:38h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

the following images were pulled from one of my latest photographic archives devoted to the study of ornamental detail found throughout interior spaces within adler & sullivan's 1889 auditorium building. images taken from the building's theater and ganz hall will be addressed in future posts. [caption...

13 Jun

Posted at 12:33h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

the following selection of images were taken during the salvage operation at 170-172 n. halsted. we salvaged anything and everything, including old elevator equipment and a pair of steel elevator doors. our work is done there, but i will likely stick around to document the...

10 Jun

Posted at 01:47h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

[caption id="attachment_37268" align="alignleft" width="1200"] undated kodachrome slide courtesy of the john vinci collection.[/caption] i recently stumbled across several images taken by an amateur photographer of the reliance building prior to extensive renovations - both inside and out - in preparation for it's new life as a...

07 Jun

Posted at 22:10h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by

  john vinci kodachrome images capturing the final moments of adler and sullivan's chicago stock exchange building (1894) in late april of 1972. note the gargantuan main steel trusses (fully exposed) that spanned the elaborately stenciled trading room. the stock exchange was completed in 1894 by the...

31 May

Posted at 22:49h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

a renewed and increasingly obsessive interest in painstakingly photographing architectural ornament on downtown chicago's landmarked buildings has been a welcome change from spending hours on end digitizing any and all ephemera and photographic images tied to the first chicago school of architecture - another project...

31 May

Posted at 02:49h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions by

the following acquisitions (see images below), in the form of architectural building fragments, photographic images, and, miscellaneous ephemera, represent a fraction of historically important materials recently added to the bldg. 51 museum and its newly formed sister organization focusing architectural ornament and ephemera (website for...

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