conversations with some of chicago's noteworthy architects and historians

it all started late last year when i befriended and later invited architectural critic lynn becker over to my place to have a drink and discuss the john kent russell house. i had little agenda except to converse about shared interests, and drinking a couple beers in the midst of my collection seemed as good a pretext as any for a meetup.

since the john kent russell house was fresh on my mind, i wanted to discuss that in some detail, but moreso i wanted to thank lynn for posting about the mid-19th century house's impending demolition. after reading his post, i'd quickly tracked down the developer who bought it and asked if i could salvage the site. the developer was a bit puzzled, but i offered him a handsome sum of cash. to be quite frank, i just wanted to document the backside of the house, where an attic addition had carefully preserved the original gable treatment, untouched since the civil war. before lynn's departure, i gave him one of the original turned wood rondels or "bullseyes" that were used on the gable brackets. and that was that.

in october i will be relocating the bldg51 museum and archival facility to a pre-fire chicago commercial building. before that point i adamantly wanted cultural historian tim samuelson to come over and see my lived-in collection of architectural madness (before it gets boxed up and stored). not to mention, i wanted to share views of the city from my vantage point, which are just remarkable! after several phone calls and email exchanges, i managed to get tim over to my place. we cracked a few beers and walked around, discussing stories about various architectural artifacts recovered from demolished buildings. it truly was a great conversation with a lot of useful information being rapidly exchanged from the get-go. i had a few pieces from the chicago athletic association building that i wanted him to have, so i forced them into his hands. time and again i'd tried to negotiate getting tim access as a "photographer's assistant" to the building's remarkable transformation, but scheduling conflicts made that connection an impossibility. so at the very least, i wanted him to have a few fragments from one of cobb's great buildings.

after tim's visit, i felt this unusual, overwhelming urge to invite others to my place for drinks and an "on the fly" chat. the urge to pursue this "meet and greet" was put on pause for quite some time, until one day months after tim's visit, i called john vinci's office. after a brief conversation, we agreed for him to meet at my place the next day after work. how seemingly random, incredibly surreal and equally exciting to meet someone like john, who i had only read about and seen in iconic pictures salvaging the garrick theater (and later looking out for his close friend, richard nickel, who went missing in the chicago stock exchange building).

the following day, john showed up and immediately we began conversing, a little clumsily at first. only after we sat down and reached a topic he was interested in did things pick up momentum. i threw back a few beers while he sipped on some moonshine from one of my cabinets. like tim's visit, i gained a great deal of insight into matters of chicago preservation and architecture, and was able to ask what they foresee doing in the future. as we concluded, i handed him a copy of my book and in exchange, he signed a photograph taken by richard nickel. the photo depicts vinci sprawled against a purposefully arranged crucifix configuration of several interlocking deep relief leafy fragments. the scene documents their careful removal of ornament from sullivan and adler's garrick theater facade.

on a roll now, and shortly after john's visit, i picked up my phone and called the offices of notable preservaton architect gunny harboe. in a similar fashion, the slightly confused harboe listened as i asked if he would like to meet for drinks and talk about this and that. not your everyday call, conversation or request, but i had nothing to lose. all he had to do was say yes or no - simple as that.

the following week around 7pm, my doorbell rang and gunny harboe was at my door. we shook hands, i invited him into my curated domain and offered him a beer. from the get-go we discussed the reliance building at great length. since i secured all the artifacts that were not going to be reused on/in the building, he wanted to know the circumstances surrounding that acquisition. after discussing that in great detail, i concluded our visit by presenting him with an original glazed terra cotta fragment that once belonged to the the building's curtain or facade. we went on to discuss other matters, including his work at unity temple and so on. it was a pleasant exchange and i enjoyed his visit immensely. i gave gunny a book and asked him to sign a picture of the rookery building, which he once worked on. perhaps my habit of exchanging souvenirs and collecting autographs is my way of documenting these encounters, since i have no interest in awkward images of the two of us with an outstretched arm holding an iphone.

i haven't quite decided who i will invite to my place in the near future. perhaps i will end it with gunny? we shall see. in the meantime, i am just so very pleased these remarkable people, who's work i greatly admire, honored my invitation and took time out of their busy schedules to engage in some casual but thoughtful conversations with me.

perhaps the most entertaining room on my "tours" is the master bathroom, which as of late has become a makeshift workshop and exhibit space for building material specimens (e.g., sill plates, studs, etc.) that i've retrieved from residential and commercial structures that have either succumbed to the wrecking ball or undergone substantial alterations. i abandoned the soaking tub long ago in order to arrange and rearrange the building materials that i've amassed this year. i'm lately overwhelmed at the dizzying speed of wood-framed structures undergoing  demolition (and imagining the valuable information they hold). i just cannot keep up with the aggressive developers seeking to build utilitarian and characterless eyesores that encroach upon and destroy neighborhoods with pockets of remarkable extant 19th century victorian era cottages and graystones. i will likely collapse from exhaustion one of these days.