BLDG51. News and Events |

19 Jan 2018 bldg. 51 museum collection acquisition highlights

Posted at 03:17h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

another year has come to a close and looking back, the bldg. 51 museum collection managed to secure several historically important architectural fragments, along with the addition of a rapidly growing archive, consisting of period photographs, books, documents, and other related materials, to compliment the...

09 Jan 19th century chicago rowhouses on webster slated for wrecking ball in coming weeks

Posted at 03:39h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

two 19th century post fire two-story italianate style brick rowhouses on webster await the wrecking ball. the well-maintained masonry homes are accentuated with seldom seen richly colored enameled minton tiles with visually striking designs. in addition to photographing the facade in great detail, i stepped back...

07 Jan photographic study of milwaukee’s city hall, pabst mansion, and the “castle on kilbourn”

Posted at 03:02h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Travel by Eric

a trip to milwaukee last weekend led to a much-needed, albeit abbreviated photographic survey of architectural building ornament (primarily terra cotta) adorning three historically significant 19th century buildings i've repeatedly visited for the last 20 years while traveling on my carefully curated "circuit" of structures within the confines of...

02 Jan 2018 Year in Review

Posted at 00:18h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Press, Salvages by Eric

as 2018 draws to a close, i culled the urban remains/bldg. 51 blog post archive to create a carefully curated collection of information, images, and acquisitions capping a year of relentless, unforgiving, and exhaustive work. the creation of this ever-expanding american architectural history database - revolving...

28 Dec historically important chicago book and ephemera collection joins bldg 51 museum archive at end of 2018

Posted at 00:09h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

highlights: finally, i found an original early 20th century chicago athletic association "cherry circle" profusely illustrated year book, providing seldom seen images of the club's...

26 Dec a photographic study of one lasalle street building’s art deco bronze lobby ornament

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

photographic survey of interior cast bronze ornament in the lobby of one lasalle street building, completed in 1930. tone lasalle street building was built in 1930 by architects vitzthum & burns – replacing the tacoma building by holabird & roche. the building is located across madison street...

26 Dec repeatedly documenting burnham and root’s rookery building yields new discoveries

Posted at 00:57h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

the scope of burnham and root’s 1888 rookery building isn’t something that can be understood in a few visits. with each visit, one leaves with a greater insight, a better understanding and also plagued by a perpetual need to ask for more – more detail,...

23 Dec documenting jewelers’ building terra cotta exterior and tower restoration work over the weekend

Posted at 20:05h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

i managed to revisit where i left off, documenting the exterior restoration work on the 40-story chicago jewelers building's southwest corner over weekend. i focused on areas where installation of replicated cream-colored glazed terra cotta (executed by boston valley) is underway. a few additional images were taken...

23 Dec seldom seen images of adler and sullivan’s garrick theater auditorium as 1950’s television studio

Posted at 17:15h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

seldom seen 1950s photographic print (not by richard nickel) of adler and sullivan's garrick theater when it was converted from theater to tv studio. there are additional images from this "series," so i will be sure to post them. the ornamental balcony plaster looks polychromed, but...

19 Dec latest john vinci’s kodachrome slides documenting chicago’s past

Posted at 21:41h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

the latest efforts to digitize notable chicago architect john vinci's collection of kodachrome and/or ektachrome slides presented below. to see previous installations or galleries of images from this ever-growing collection, visit the links below. captions will be added to the slides as time permits. ...

18 Dec latest photographic images of adler and sullivan’s garrick theater shortly before its demolition in 1961

Posted at 16:13h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

once again, i've revisited richard nickel's archive on adler and sullivan's 1892 schiller building, demolished in 1961. the "salvaging the garrick" book is slowly coming together as i continue to gather archival material, digitize photographic images, and acquire any and all ornament salvaged during its...

16 Dec photographic survey of architectural ornament taken during weekend trip to boston

Posted at 18:00h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Travel by Eric

during my very brief visit to boston in late november, i took thousands of images of focusing on h.h. richardson's architecture, late 19th century ornament (e.g., carved brick) adorning houses located in the backbay neighborhood, mit chapel, a small selection of building on harvard's campus...

12 Dec several new architectural artifacts, objects, and ephemera join urban remains online catalog

Posted at 15:23h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 45,000 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be)...

11 Dec photodocumenting architectural building ornament in wisconsin revisited

Posted at 19:16h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Travel by Eric

unfortunately, i haven't had much time to visit neighboring wisconsin this year to photograph architecture in cities and town across the state. i did have a chance to revisit louis h. sullivan's farmers and merchants union bank in columbus (1919) while in madison shooting the...

06 Dec examples of carved brick as architectural ornament in boston

Posted at 20:38h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Travel by Eric

i've researched ornamental carved brick for sometime now, but lacked any extensive and/or detailed visual documentation of it in situ. fortunately, i ran across a wide array of examples on houses (built between the late 1870's and mid-1880's) located in and around boston's back bay. ...

04 Dec a 19th century cottage and 1914 bascule bridge wiped away from chicago’s cityscape

Posted at 13:58h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

it’s been awhile since i’ve documented chicago houses faced with death by demolition. with such limited bandwidth as of late, it’s become increasingly hard to document everything i care deeply about. after seeing this 19th century masonry cottage land on the chopping block over the weekend...

28 Nov a look back at salvaging an early 20th century chicago standard brewery “tied house” saloon demolished over 3 years ago

Posted at 03:52h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

the following blog entry was first posted on july 15th, 2015. i spent the greater part of a day documenting and salvaging ornament from the historically-important early 20th century saloon building that has been identified as the only known "tied house" (i.e., exclusively sold and served standard-brand beer bottled and...

26 Nov latest images documenting restoration of howells and hood’s 1925 tribune tower

Posted at 01:28h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

images of howells and hood's chicago tribune tower (completed, 1925) restoration taken earlier this week. despite repeatedly shooting the building for months now, i never grow tired gazing at the crown's gothic style carved bedford limestone ornament. ...

25 Nov salvaging adler and sullivan’s garrick theater book on horizon

Posted at 03:47h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

my goal is to digitize any and all images taken by richard nickel of the demolition, salvage, and dispersal of ornament from adler and sullivan's garrick theater (1892-1961) by the end of the year. the images will be a primary source used to build upon the...

23 Nov nearly complete set of rare late 19th and early 20th century “architects and builders” handbooks added to bld. 51 museum archive

Posted at 22:53h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

my latest project involves scanning seldom seen images of architects, advertisements, and buildings from several late 19th and early 20th century "architects and builders" handbooks i recently acquired over the weekend. the softbound books were published by the chicago architects' business association. the building pictured is...