[caption id="attachment_27214" align="alignleft" width="1100"] detail of northwestern terra cotta company exterior ornament adorning the facade of a 19th century chicago workers cottage.[/caption] meticulously documenting the surface detail and design of chicago's older extant architecture will remain a top priority in 2017. with so many projects, exhibitions, and...
some of the first hidden and/or forgotten remnants recovered in the first part of 2017, came from the ground, discovered in one of the many forgotten city dumps that dot the cityscape. the dump contained piles upon piles of leather shoe soles, caked with a wretched...
a blog entry posted two weeks ago provided extensive documentation pertaining to the careful extraction of the former milwaukee avenue motor sales building's (more commonly known as the "mega mall") roofline ornamental terra cotta urns. beginning last last week, demolition was underway - to my...
widow and socialite ann halsted commissioned adler & sullivan to build her understated gold coast mansion at 440 w. beldan ave. in 1884. sullivan’s trademark ornaments are diminished to an elaborate cornice and bay windows. in halsted’s own words, she wanted the house to have...
being semi-retired has been incredibly rewarding, and has allowed me ample time to pursue my obsessions, and immerse myself in various chicago histories. looking back at this past year inspired me share a few of these "themes" i dedicated great time and energy to. some...
this december the bldg. 51 museum collection received a welcome, but unexpected boost in inventory of historically important chicago building terra cotta. the majority of the exterior ornament salvaged over the years hailed from buildings no longer with us. one particular piece carries great significance for...
senseless. ...
i was pleasantly surprised and utterly delighted when a good friend of mine gave me an original two-tone mosaic tile floor segment from one of two schiller building (garrick theater) staircase landings, discovered by nickel et al. in may of 1960 - shortly before the building...
as i'm sure many do, i am constantly using the "lens" of my mind, conveniently tucked away in my cortex, to record what captivates me. unfortunately, lugging around a bag of camera bodies and lenses is the only vehicle to sharing this information. this entails...
we have spent most of the week now carefully extracting ornamental terra cotta from the facade of the "mega mall," which was built between 1921-1923 as an automobile showroom or dealership for chevrolet. the unusually colored exterior ornament with mottled finish was fabricated by the american...
BY SEAN LEWIS AND STACY FRIEDMAN CHICAGO -- Eric Nordstrom didn’t plan to spend his life poking around crumbling churches, homes and hospitals on a quest to document history. He studied molecular genetics at the University of Minnesota and was a staff scientist at the University...
another physically and emotionally draining year has drawn to a close, but the ungodly amount of projects have left a heap of photographic images, documents, and artifact extractions waiting to be transformed into blog posts, exhibits, lectures, and narratives, that will carry into 2017 and perhaps...
the bldg. 51 american architectural artifact museum recently acquired several r.r. donnelley printing plant (extant) ornamental terra cotta exterior shields featuring richly colored polychromatic finishes. fabricated by the midland terra cotta (chicago, ills.), the shields adorned the exterior facade of the massive printing facility, considered the...
in a previous post, the bldg. 51 museum acquired a unique and highly figurative terra cotta rondel that was positioned between the spandrels on the exterior of the sullivan-inspired late 19th century st. boniface school building (demolished in the 1990's). late last week several pallets of...
after learning that the city had rejected the demolition of a post-fire chicago cottage located at 1639 n. north park avenue this morning, i opened up my schedule to spend the afternoon photodocumenting the frame house's exterior characteristics. from there, i decided to broaden the...
with the drebohl brothers and zessler "munich" style art glass windows removed from park view lutheran church (see prior posts), my only business being was to document its senseless and destruction, that surprisingly, went largely unnoticed by neighbors and preservationists alike. it was utterly surreal...
a collection of fulton market cold storage warehouse utilitarian objects. ...
earlier this month, two nearly identical, museum-quality cast plaster interior residential ceiling medallions salvaged by richard nickel in 1968 were recently added to the bldg. 51 museum collection. the remarkable solid plaster ceiling medallions or rosettes were designed by louis h. sullivan for the louis...
documenting rapp and rapp's chicago theater (1921) today was nothing short of sensory overload. my camera crawled over so many intricate fixtures, and i was engulfed in a sea of ornamental plasterwork - both in the lobby and auditorium (see previous posts for a discussion...
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