Bldg. 51

i've been spending great lengths of time reviewing images taken from various excavation sites, privy pits and other underground spaces to include in the highly-anticipated "unearthing chicago" hardcover book due out by the end of the this year. at times i feel my eyeballs are going to drop out of my head after opening one folder after another filled with hundreds...

neighbors have expressed both interest and concern over the fate of a 19th century victorian era red brick house bedecked with several stained glass windows, ornamental terra cotta brick and a visually striking, painted, galvanized tin bracketed cornice with a large circular-shaped sunburst. a similar house built across the street featuring an equally impressive facade is currently for sale, with the possibility that...

heneghan wrecking leveled the assemblage of finkl steel framed sheds and brick and mortar foundry buildings earlier this year. urban remains was fortunate to participate in the salvage, and managed to rescue an impressive catalog of distinctive artifacts and furniture that otherwise would have been scrapped or brought to the landfill. a reflection of our efforts can be viewed in both...

By:  Scott A. Rappe, AIA We have not had to face this question for awhile, but with tentative signs of economic improvement, East Village, Wicker Park and Bucktown are beginning to see rampant tear downs again. In the last six weeks, on Wood Street between Chicago and Armitage alone, no fewer than six vintage brick and stone buildings have been...

every morning i'm hit with an email notification detailing the number of city of chicago demolition permits issued for 19th and early 20th century residential and commercial structures alike. as i review each and every permit issued, i increasingly feel an urgent self-induced pressure to seek out and document the structures that captivate me, whether they are unidentified pre-fire chicago cottages containing important...

when time permits, i will make sure to supplement the following series of images with an explanation and discussion of this salvage. the photos document the demolition of a 19th century victorian era transplanted wood-framed workers cottage. two interesting finds during the demolition: the discovery of a 19th century applied "blob top" hutchinson-shaped john lomax soda bottle (found within one...

the small chicago worker's cottage was torn down long ago, but from the smattering of objects unearthed (thus far) during excavation, i managed to gain some insight into what transpired there, beginning from the time of construction sometime during the mid-19th century. i was notified early one morning when the first discovery was made by the excavator. before looking at sanborn...

the number of daily demolition notifications i receive is incredibly alarming on so many levels. this is no doubt a mantra i have repeatedly expressed in prior posts, interviews, etc. i will expound upon this further when attending the 19th century building materials exhibit that bldg. 51 and the clarke house are co-presenting at the glessner museum during the "open...

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...

the bldg. 51 museum has multiple 19th century artifacts from adler and sullivan's guaranty building. these include an interior staircase baluster, which is the only surviving all-original lobby flush mount light fixture ceiling medallion (the current fixtures in situ are recasts), and a few doorknobs and backplates removed from the building's office doors. the baluster in this post is the...

By Rick Kogan contact the reporter|Chicago Tribune| Images courtesy of Eric J. Nordstrom The block of Burton Place between LaSalle and Wells streets is as charming and architecturally distinctive a block as you will find in the city. Go ahead, have a look. It is also a quiet, even serene stretch of sidewalk. But that calm, tree-shadowed facade hides an increasingly...

for well over 18 years now, whenever i encountered this remarkable german baroque style mansion, built for joseph b. kalvelage in 1896 by local architect otto strack, i felt a strong sense of unease as i approached the facade with my camera. it certainly didn't help that directly behind the milwaukee mansion was the (now-demolished) apartment building where jeffery dahmer committed disturbing...

Deconstructing Early Chicago Saturday October 17 & Sunday October 18, 2015 9:00am-5:00pm Coach House of Glessner House Museum 1800 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago, IL 60616 Free Admission Clarke House Museum and Building 51 Museum will partner to present a special exhibition of early Chicago building fragments and systems on display in the historic Glessner House Museum coach house. This two-day installation features...

on saturday afternoon i arrived at the salerno cookie factory, or rather what was left of it, after a wrecking company hastily tore down the long stretch of the building's facade. this was comprised of red brick divided by cast concrete columns, accentuated with brightly colored inlaid tile. the once visually stunning art deco "machine age" streamlined style entrance was nearly...

upon discovering this building i instantly fell in love with and greatly admired the slim and sleek profile of the chicago motor club building, which like the nearby carbide and carbon building by architects holabird and roche (reopened as the hard rock hotel in 2004), was well on its way to being transformed into a hotel. fortunately, in both buildings, the exterior...

portable fire escapes date back to 18th century england, where in 1784, daniel maseres invented a machine simply called a "fire escape," a device fastened to the window of a building that would enable a person to descend to the street without injury. abraham wivell created an improved design, including an escape chute, after becoming superintendent of the "royal society for the...

prior to visiting this site, i had only seen it in pictures, by way of google street view. despite toggling back and forth between images of the house between 2007-2014 on google's "timeline," it was difficult to ascertain stylistic features or architectural characteristics that would provide better insight into when the house was built and how it was configured (i.e., single family versus...

very little remains of a. finkl & sons foundry as demolition draws to a close. the images below were taken a few days ago when i visited the site. even though our work there was completed weeks ago, i had been itching to return and photodocument what, if anything, remained standing of this former gargantuan industrial complex.  as expected, virtually every building clustered together on both...

it was surprisingly challenging to put together a collection of images designed to provide the reader with a visual synopsis of all the work that transpired at the chicago athletic club association building over the past few years. with over 10,000 images captured and tucked away on hard drives (many still in raw format), i feel it would take at least a...

every time i entered one of the many mammoth industrial melt, machine or forge "shops" located throughout the sprawling a. finkl & sons chicago foundry complex, i could not help but look up in awe. high above rested remarkably antiquated overhead cranes designed to to move insanely heavy pots of molten metal. the gargantuan metal bridges or "hoists" would crawl along parallel...