New Acquisitions

anticipating another year of lost buildings through demolition, i've already prepared additional storage space for the ever-growing collection of lost or discarded objects found under attic floorboards, ledger and sill plates, foundation walls, and stud cavities within those 19th century chicago cottages that are faced with demolition, or which have already been eradicated from the cityscape. by and large the primary...

bldg. 51 museum's collection of early electric sockets and fixtures. morris selz house (1883): this unrestored morris selz house (1883) three-arm tubular brass wall sconce is quite possibly the earliest known surviving light fixture from an adler and sullivan commission. remarkably, two of the three edison sockets with direct-turn thumb switches, are completely intact. the selz house was never connected...

several important and seldom found building trade product catalogs, ranging from the late 19th century to the early 20th, have been painstakingly digitized and added to the bldg. 51 architectural artifact archive over the first half of 2022. the majority of the catalogs, brochures, building books, etc., are recent acquisitions - joining the ever-expanding library devoted to history of american...

old (and rather primitive) newsletters dating from the early years of urban remains to the launch of the website blog in 2013, were recently found and digitized this past weekend. the newsletter "snapshots" are provided below in chronological order.  images and/or information courtesy of eric j. nordstrom, urban remains, and the bldg. 51 archive. all rights reserved. 2022.

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural artifacts added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 75,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 16 years). the newly acquired items for the month of JUly, 2022, have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories. any and all cataloged inventory...

the bldg. 51 museum archive has finally begun the long and arduous process of digitizing any and all blueprints, photographic images, contracts, and shop drawings of the noel state bank (1919) designed by the architectural firm of weary and alford.  the largely intact archive was salvaged from a hidden vault in the noel state bank building, located in the wicker...

the bldg. 51 chicago building artifact museum just acquired an early john edelmann-designed hand carved walnut wood interior residential door surround block salvaged in 1959-60 from the levi strauss house (1860s, 1880 remodel). interior ornament - all designed by john edelmann during the 1880 remodel - was documented and salvaged by richard nickel, david norris, and john vinci. other examples...

The harnessing of electricity is as important in human history as the first uses of fire. Naturally, nothing remains of fire’s human origins.  But the emergence of electricity is dramatically represented by the surviving light sconces from Chicago’s historic Fisk Street generating station. Upon starting operations in 1903, the Fisk Street generating station represented the power of electricity coming of...

the bldg. 51 archvie, which houses the largest repository of 2d and 3d materials pertaining to the life and work of odin j. oyen - a la crosse-based late 19th and early 20th century artist and interior decorator - will be completely digitized by the end of 2022. the oyen decorating firm traces its roots to company founder odin j...

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural artifacts added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 75,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 16 years). the newly acquired items for the month of JUly, 2022, have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective website categories. any and all...

a seldom found, oversized full-figured red slip glaze terra cotta eagle salesman sample and late 19th century stock pattern commerical or residential terra cotta block (see image of winkle factory with workers surrounding finished building ornament) were added to the bldg. 51 musuem archive during a recent trip to st. louis.  about the winkle terra cotta works, st. louis, mo...

the following images offer a cursory glance at an ever-growing collection of ephemera, objects, and photographs  (largely owned and housed in the bldg. 51 archive) pertaining to chicago architectural preservation, with the earliest material dating back to the inception of chicago preservation movement in the 1950s (e.g., chicago heritage committee). image captions and essay will be added when time permits...

leaded glass windows, interior fixtures, and other furnishings salvaged from the william f. tempel house have joined the bldg. 51 musuem. images include fixtures in situ when the walter burley griffin-designed house was built in 1911, along with barry byrne and alfonso iannelli addition completed in 1919.  images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom, urban remains and the bldg. 51 archive...

a one month visual timeline capturing the slow, but steady, urban remains showroom and bldg. 51 musuem as it continues to evolve through a seemingly unending stream of artifacts arriving from storage - and a recent historically impotant house salvage. early may: mid may: late may: images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom, urban remains, and the bldg. 51 archive. all...

sadly, there aren't many original (that i know of) sidewalk "vault lights" (i.e., cast iron hub and glass rondel configuration) left to document in chicago. the donohue building (1883, julius speyer architect) offers one of the best examples - largely intact, multi-panel commercial entrance stoops with visible name plaques and patent dates. history       dauchy & company, chicago...

looking over newspapers on the guaranty building, i discovered plans were announced in jan. of 1951 to do away with the original open-cage sullivan-designed elevator enclosures within the guaranty building (adler & sullivan, 1896). the "modernization" would cost 20,000, which included new otis elevator cabs ordered to replace the "antiquated cages." at ryerson, i finally found and scanned 35mm contact prints...

with the power cut and fence erected, walter burley griffin's historically important william f. tempel house (commonly referred to as the "solid rock" house) will be destroyed this week. located in winnetka, ills, the reinforced concrete house was erected in 1911 and later remodeled in 1919 by barry byrne and alfonso iannelli. image courtesy of chris ware collection. a partial...

terra-cotta, the most enduring of all building materials, has been used to a greater or less extent from a high antiquity in continental europe, and in england terra-cotta trimmings were used in building as early as the fifteenth century. in the united states this material does not seem to have been introduced until after 1850. experiments were made in this...

in my studio one night recently, i was photographing the latest collection of bottles, chinaware and other debris unearthed from sites along grand avenue, just west of downtown chicago. i was utterly burned out, troubling over moving forward, so i quickly switched gears to set the dug remnants aside and scan the towering pallet racks where i keep all the building materials...

most recent architectural ornament, artifacts, objects and ephemera recently added and/or digitized to the bldg. 51 museum collection and archive.  highlights include richard nickel's audio-visual equipment used to record preservation hearings, conduct interviews (e.g., frank lloyd wright, elmslie sisters, william g. purcell, etc.), adler and sullivan auditorium building (1889) interior ornament, iannelli sculpture for midway gardens, and an edgar miller...