on sunday afternoon of the memorial day weekend, i managed to make time to visit frank lloyd wright's winter home and school known as taliesin west, which is located on a southern slope of the mcdowell range overlooking paradise valley outside scottsdale, arizona. wright would spend his winters there,...
over fifty american depression-era "new old stock" pressed and folded baked green enameled steel reflectors or shades were recently discovered in the storage room of an old chicago area twine factory. the diminutive pendant or task lamp shades were designed and fabricated by or for harvey...
i've decided to add more posts pertaining to "gardenesque" ornament, perhaps inspired by what i've discovered in the chicago athletic association building (a topic i've written about before) and more recently, my revisitation of the ornamental terra cotta elements i managed to salvage from the...
i'm truly amazed at the enormity of ornament found in the commercial and residential buildings we salvage prior to the arrival of the wrecking ball. much of this interior ornament was produced by the decorators supply company, which traces its history back to 1883 when the original...
after a long day of extensive shooting at the chicago athletic association building the other day, i purposely went out of my way to photograph sullivan's intricate organic design motifs covering the schlesinger & mayer building's corner entrance. i never grow tired of studying the ornament from...
the fate of the historic roanoke building's c. 1914 basement general distribution switchboard remains uncertain. "offline" or disconnected since 1940, the largely intact black slate-backed "open" switchboard, with visually appealing glass enclosed watthour, volt and amp meters, along with oversized copper "knife" switches and incised-letter plaques...
the photo gallery below offers a few hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this week's listings (10 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 20,000 item mark. the ultimate goal since...
detailed photograph of holy trinity orthodox cathedral's west entrance canopy. the image was taken over the weekend by eric j. nordstrom during a brief visit to document exterior church features. the chicago church was constructed in 1903, and is one of only two churches designed...
the photographs taken by eric. j. nordstrom were taken bottom-up, beginning at the building's midsection. the last "period" image of the building - around the turn of the century - can be used as your guide to pinpoint the locations where nordstrom's detailed images were taken. nearly...
The Alestle is the student-run newspaper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Posted: Thursday, May 1, 2014, by Luke Schmidt The Louis Sullivan Collection on the second floor of the Lovejoy Library pays homage to a giant of American architecture, displaying original ornament salvaged from buildings right before, and often...
[gallery ids="1737,1738,1739,1740,1741,1742,1743,1744,1745,1746"]...
the trade signs found on or around the exterior and/or interior commercial building storefronts took on many forms in early american cities. when education was a privilege and literacy rare, the ideal trade sign immediately caught the attention of a passerby and, because of its...
i was virtually alone. free to explore. with cameras and lenses strapped to my body, i wandered around every nook and cranny, meticulously documenting the sulllivan ornament that was all around me. it was very dark, despite 3,500 glowing carbon filament incandescent light bulbs. the theater's...
on thursday afternoon (last week) i attended an interesting lecture given by my friend and colleague bart swindall at the auditorium building. the topic of discussion revolved around artifacts that were removed or went "missing" from the building's theater and hotel over the course of...
milwaukee is my home away from home, especially when i really want to wander around aimlessly, photodocumenting architectural details that capture my attention across the urban landscape. don't get me wrong, there is a substantial amount of terrain for me to document here in chicago,...
we just purchased a huge load of all original all-metal or pressed and folded steel furniture designed and fabricated by the simmons mfg. co., kenosha, wisc. coming across a few pieces here and there is good, but having the opportunity to purchase "simmons" furniture on...
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...
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...
one of the fundamental steps in accident prevention in a factory setting is warning the workmen of the presence of danger. during the late 19th and early 20th century, this proved challenging because of the great variety of languages spoken. in the iron and steel...
i really wanted these prints! very disappointed. i thought for sure i would secure them at the low estimate. however, there just comes a point when you have to step down - they were more "sub-collection" material...