photodocumenting st. john's church deconstruction from high above

out of equal parts curiosity and utter fascination i've chosen to devote a considerable amount of my time away from the business life of urban remains, toward meticulously documenting the death of a logan square church. instead of the usual deconstruction process, in which the building is swiftly pulled apart then left as a pile of rubbish, considered waste to be trucked off, i'm witnessing the church being systematically stripped of its parts then carefully organized. whether architectural components are palletized, stacked, or boxed - the collection of material is redistributed to various recipients in need of say, several pallets of face brick, or perhaps a a few crates of slate shingles to repair portions of a badly damaged period residence.

i'm very impressed with the efforts put forth to ensure a building or structure lives on beyond just in its few select ornamental fragments or artifacts. these in their own right elicit a strong sense of loss, considering the most distinctive elements likely gave the building its character-- the very character that draws building enthusiasts and preservationists to put up a fight against its demolition. although deconstruction is still demolition in terms of the end result, the methodologies remain important, drawing attention to any and all materials and thus the respective trades or tradesman that were involved as a collective to construct the building long ago - from its lath and plaster to its brick and mortar.

for someone who has invested a great deal of time in studying historic building materials harvested from chicago cottages, this approach is a great opportunity to photodocument all of the various "systems" - both in materials and methods - as the structure is taken apart piece by piece to be redistributed and reused. at this point, i've learned quite a bit about this process, especially after reviewing images taken from the site over the course of two weeks and counting.

as demolition unfolds in st. john's church, i've been carefully watching and documenting per my usual methods, and i've additionally been experimenting with alternative methods to document the process. this includes attaching a "gopro" camera  to the arms of wrecking machines, for example, or using drone technology for aerial views, and so on. i'm hoping that these recording instruments will greatly enhance or at the very least, complement the way i document the death of buildings. mind you, i'm still in an experimental phase, so whether new recording devices will prove to be highly beneficial remains to be determined.

in this case, neither drone, nor "gopro" were used. instead, i approached the structure with the help of a boom lift or "cherry picker," and with my camera and interchangeable lenses in hand to capture the structure from high above. from this unusual vantage point, high above a low-lying neighborhood, there were none of the obstructions commonly faced at ground level. the view from a wrecker's machine provided a lush new perspective from which to observe the exposed skeletal structure of st. john's church.

 additional images pending.