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The Alestle is the student-run newspaper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Posted: Thursday, May 1, 2014, by Luke Schmidt The Louis Sullivan Collection on the second floor of the Lovejoy Library pays homage to a giant of American architecture, displaying original ornament salvaged from buildings right before, and often during, their demolition. To look upon these pieces is to look upon the...

i was virtually alone. free to explore. with cameras and lenses strapped to my body, i wandered around every nook and cranny, meticulously documenting the sulllivan ornament that was all around me. it was very dark, despite 3,500 glowing carbon filament incandescent light bulbs. the theater's interior is a true portal to the past, at least in my mind. it...

on thursday afternoon (last week) i attended an interesting lecture given by my friend and colleague bart swindall at the auditorium building. the topic of discussion revolved around artifacts that were removed or went "missing" from the building's theater and hotel over the course of 125 years. for nearly 45 minutes, mr. swindall discussed notable and often heart-breaking alterations and...

i believe i have around 5,000 images taken thus far of the exterior and interior of the chicago athletic association building and annex. this vast collection of imagery has been subdivided into categories based on mostly subjective parameters i've put in place (e.g., location, materials and so on). today i decided to step away from the architectural details (i.e., close-ups) i always tend to gravitate towards and instead, capture the space as a whole, where many of its parts are placed in an actual context involving scale, arrangements or configurations and so on.  i spent a great of time in the old reading room, located on the second floor, where a forest of darkly stained gothic style quartered oak wood tracery surrounds me every-which-way.

milwaukee is my home away from home, especially when i really want to wander around aimlessly, photodocumenting architectural details that capture my attention across the urban landscape. don't get me wrong, there is a substantial amount of terrain for me to document here in chicago, but for some reason or another, milwaukee speaks to me differently - through my camera lens.

in a single afternoon, six gargantuan hand carved limestone eagles were carefully hoisted from their perches that wrapped around three sides of the bunte candy factory water tower prior to demolition. the massive prairie school style factory complex was designed by the notable chicago-based architectural firm of schimdt, garden & martin in 1919.  

i spent a few hours the other day photographing any and all alterations that have been made since my last visit a few weeks prior. progress has been made, but not on a large scale - at least as of yet. regardless, i tend to find myself gravitating towards the rooms where the original architectural details have been left alone...

notable chicago prairie school architect louis h. sullivan designed builders' hardware for a number his buildings while working with dankmar adler during the 1890's. the non-extant chicago stock exchange building - constructed in 1894 - contained some of his finest hardware designs (the guaranty building was the other exceptional example with documented drawings for an escutcheon). the hardware used in...

the highly anticipated bldg. 51 museum artifact catalog will be available for sale - both online and in stores by late summer. the limited edition (print quantity of 500) catalog is divided into three major sections, consisting of artifacts from notable building commissions by architect frank lloyd wright, louis h. sullivan, and chicago area buildings and theaters chosen both on...

i'm posting a few images of my personal collection... my interests are constantly evolving as i continually explore the vast  and varied "artifact universe", where many sub-collections have spawned from. as the collection grows, i've decided it is time to begin documenting these artifacts in the form of a series of catalogs, with the first due out in late april/early...

revisited the mecca exhibit (located at the cultural center) with a reporter i have since befriended. the timing was perfect. to our great surprise, we crossed paths with tim samuelson - the show's curator and chicago's cultural historian. we were kindly invited to spend an afternoon with tim in his office, conversing about all matters sullivan - including a an...

if my light source went dark, i would be in world of trouble. with a respirator, layer upon layer of clothing, clunky steel toe boots, tool belt and a headband flashlight, i began walking across this vast crawl space filled with criss-crossing structural iron trusses and a sea of incredibly dark and dusty plaster strung up by hundreds of steel...

i really wanted these prints! very disappointed. i thought for sure i would secure them at the low estimate. however, there just comes a point when you have to step down - they were more "sub-collection" material... at the end of the day, i collect artifacts, not photography, but they would have certainly been a nice addition to my mazda light...

the highly anticipated bldg. 51 museum artifact catalog will be available for sale - both online and in stores by late spring. the limited edition (print quantity of 500) catalog is divided into three major sections, consisting of artifacts from notable building commissions by architect frank lloyd wright, louis h. sullivan, and chicago area buildings chosen both on artistic merit...

hopefully within the next week or two, we will be removing the staircase and massive chandelier from the south side chicago jeffery theater lobby. in addition to myself and job site staff, we will have a reporter, photographer and a film crew planted there to document the removal of the artifacts. the focal point of course, will be the chandelier...

we managed to secure a total of four matching historically important oversized exterior ornamental cast iron single electric light sconces salvaged from the original wrigley jr. company's chewing gum factory, located at 35th and ashland avenue. as of early 2014, the factory complex continues to fall to the wrecking ball. the exceptional sconces were likely executed by the winslow brothers...

with camera gear and tripods in hand and around my shoulders, i entered the chicago athletic association building for another highly anticipated afternoon spent photodocumenting the chicago athletic association building and annex - known as the "michigan building" and "madison building" respectively. after arranging my camera equipment, throwing on the hard hat and drowning out the obnoxious construction noise around...

this diminutive early american industrial iron and steel contraption - identified simply as an "adjustable supporter" or knuckle joint, was patented by otis c. white (a dental surgeon from hopkinton, massachusetts) in 1893 for use with electric lamps or lighting, that over time, would gain widespread use in factory and/or various commercial settings throughout the country. the "lamp supporter" or compound swiveling...

urban remains spent a good portion of 2009 carefully extracting artifacts from the jarvis hunt-designed lake shore drive athletic club for future use and/or reintegration into the building once it was converted to apartments. that time has come. see below, in article and images.  Once threatened with demolition, the 19-story building from 1927 will now have units ranging from $1,900...

the images below depict a rare, joseph f. l. uhl-designed chair patented in 1902 (considered a precursor to the slightly modified "perfection" chair) and manufactured by the uhl brothers company, toledo, oh. this early prototype was advertised as a new and useful improvement in the construction of metal furniture (at the time, twisted metal furniture was mostly predominant during the...