New Acquisitions

offering a rare glimpse at the evolution of a historically significant architectural masterpiece, bldg. 51 has recently obtained a set of linen work drafts for the historic chicago rookery building. designed for burnham and root under the project name “order no. 918”, the fourteen iron and glass skylight design linens create a collection of deeply informative and highly technical drafts...

albert w. sullivan house (1892-1970): richard nickel images documenting the removal of the louis sullivan-designed carved bedford limestone entrance lunette from the albert sullivan house's façade in 1970. the lunette is one of only a few surviving links to sullivan's work on the 1893 chicago world's fair transportation building (designed around the time the house was built). in addition to...

the virtual gallery presented below, offers a detailed account of the latest historically important architectural materials added to the bldg. 51 archive in spring of 2020. a more focused and in-depth blog post, will touch upon some of the more notable and historically important documents and/or objects found below. when time permits, detailed captions will be added to each and every...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 60,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items for the month of april have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 60,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items for the month of april have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 60,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories.

the following links provide access to hundreds of images taken of 19th and early 20th century architectural ornament adorning extant residential and commercial structures in and around downtown milwaukee, taken over the past several years. images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bld. 51 archive.  WEEKEND TRIP TO MILWAUKEE: WORKER COTTAGES, SOLOMON BEMAN, TERRA COTTA ORNAMENT AND INCISED BUILDING...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 60,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories.

one day i received a call from the general manager at hotel burnham (named after notable chicago architect daniel burnham), which is downtown chicago hotel that currently occupies the reliance building, completed march, 1895. prior to being converted into a boutique hotel, the building sat largely abandoned, the upper floors containing only a few transient tenants in dimly lit, crumbling...

late last week urban remains purchased a massive collection of 19th century american victorian era majolica glazed residential fireplace tile sets salvaged over the past few decades from chicago two and three-flat greystones undergoing demolition. the majority of the richly ornamented and deeply embossed fireplace tiles were executed by the trent tile company or american encaustic (see brief company history...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 60,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories.

a collection of historically-important architectural ornament, comprised of sullivan-designed ornament salvaged from adler and sullivan's guaranty building (1896), and an exterior brick wall fragment recovered during demolition of frank lloyd wright's larkin building (1904-1906) during its demolition in 1950, was purchased for the bldg. 51 museum and archive late last week. the fragment collection is tied to a deeply informative...

another year has drawn to a close and looking back, the bldg. 51 museum collection managed to secure several historically important architectural fragments, in addition to the evolving archive, consisting of period photographs, books, documents, drawings, blueprints, models, and other related materials that will prove invaluable to bolster the narratives of the museum's ornament for future exhibitions. highlights from 2019...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 50,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories.  

the following collection on posts revolve around architectural salvage operations (big and small) across the city of chicago over the past decade. in time, i hope to revisit dormant images and information waiting to be transformed into posts to shed light on buildings demolished long ago, but live on through ornament and images.  A LOOK BACK AT SALVAGING AN EARLY...

two richly ornamented and historically important architectural fragments from adler and sullivan buildings are the latest additions to the rapidly-expanding bldg. 51 archive and museum. the first piece, executed by james legge and cast in plaster, was salvaged from the 10th floor hotel dining room (now roosevelt university's library) in adler and sullivan's extant auditorium building, completed in 1889. the...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 50,000 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories.  

looking over newspapers on the guaranty building, i discovered plans that announced (january, 1951) to do away with the original open-cage sullivan-designed elevator enclosures within the guaranty building (adler & sullivan, architects, 1896). the "modernization" would cost 20,000, which included new otis elevator cabs ordered to replace the "antiquated cages." in subsequent decades, adler and sullivan's guaranty building fell into...

2019 has been an incredibly fruitful year in terms of ephemera, book, and artifact acquisition - based upon what the bldg. 51 museum archive has already secured, along with arrangements in the works or nearing finalization. the ever-growing museum archive has reached a critical mass, where a publicly accessibly venue is necessary to properly display and/or exhibit chicago-based 19th and...

among the bldg. 51 museum archive's latest addition is an original frank lloyd wright-designed buff-colored terra cotta exterior robert roloson rowhouse (1894) baluster  salvaged when the front terraces where dismantled/demolished in the early 1970's. most of the surviving balusters exhibit some degree of damage, espeically around the necks and bases. a single centrally located iron rod was used to reinforce...