with keystones and now ironwork rescued from landfill, not all is lost at the former voltz hall building

following up on the recent demolition at the corner of wells and chicago, of the former "voltz hall" -- i cannot help but return time and again to sites that peak my interest. over the weekend, i identified one of the limestone window headers laying largely unscathed on the remains of the former 19th century german saloon.

on sunday night i reached out to project manager, greg (a good friend, and someone i've known since the nortown theater salvage), asking if he could set aside that "athens" cut limestone window header for me to pick up the following day. after negotiating the deal with heneghan - a wrecker i've also worked with for ten years - i arrived onsite to secure the large, extremely heavy header, and any decorative limestone elements that greg was kind enough to pull out from the pile before my arrival.

shortly thereafter, the gargantuan exterior facade elements were arduously removed from the site and slowly transported back to the studio, where they will be carefully documented, photographed, and later added to the ever-growing bldg. 51 virtual museum collection. until we finalize a location to make these chicago building artifacts viewable to the public (likely as revolving exhibits), they will simply have to be labeled, crated and stowed away for safekeeping.

voltz hall underwent extensive remuddling, or a very poor attempt to recreate its former elegance. this was evident in its reproduced cornice, increased erosion to the face brick from aggressive cleaning methods, and replaced windows and storefront. there really weren't many original elements to salvage except for the limestone, in the form of pyramidal-shaped window hoods with centrally located "bullseyes" and an unusually truncated double-sided limestone frieze or banding exhibiting lightly carved simple floral forms.

in any case the voltz hall architectural fragments join a number of other keystones from historically important pre- and post-fire buildings salvaged last year and early this year. these include the early 1870's osborne and adams loft, an 1869 augustus-bauer designed german school building, and an early chicago loft style commercial building located at 128 west lake street. perhaps the rescue of this piece of voltz hall can be contextualized anew among related artifacts, and, with any luck, extend the life of the building's story.

the newly added "historic" or rather cartoonish decorative copper cornice was a mockery of the original, the was recklessly stripped off at same time when the beautifully patinated soiled masonry was sandblasted away, leaving a grotesque looking red-orange color.

if mr. voltz was here to witness the tasteless alternations that left it in its current state, he would likely have been insulted and may very well been onboard with it being knocked down. in fact, i believe in a rather ironic fashion that the building's fate was sealed long ago, when the "restoration" in an attempt to "revive" its curb appearance actually did the opposite - it stripped away the nicely aged patina and original elements that made the building so distinct in the first place.

update as of 2-12-16:

when i was called back to the site shortly after the demolition was nearly completed, greg (site foreman) informed me that he had set aside the ornamental ionic style cast iron capital that adorned the load-bearing column on the corner where the original entrance to the voltz saloon was located. the capital consisted of four panels (two were damaged when it toppled over during demolition) fastened with two screws against the cylindrical-shaped iron column. we managed to remove the undamaged panels and bring them back to the shop for cleaning and documentation. the smaller (and much lighter) ornamented iron panels will contribute to the spectrum of building materials used to "dress" the facade of this now-demolished building.