Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

  in preparation for publishing "unearthing chicago" in 2022, i've pulled some images capturing 19th and early 20th century bottles at excavation sites around chicago. shortly after being discovered, these remnants of victorian-era rubbish were carefully exposed by removing surrounding dirt and debris to reveal a little more of their identity. even when cleaned the artifacts retain the imprint of...

Capturing Louis Sullivan: What Richard Nickel Saw August 26, 2022 -February 19, 2023 Richard Nickel (1928-1972) was a Polish-American architectural photographer and preservationist. Nickel first encountered the work of Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) as a student, when photographing the architect’s buildings for a project at the IIT Institute of Design. In the 1960s and 1970s, many of Sullivan’s buildings began to...

selection of images taken during a brief visit to st. louis in the early summer months of 2022. prior blog posts from this trip focus on the work of harvey ellis commissions (with the exception of union station). images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 archive. all rights reserved. 2022. 

adler and sullivan's loeb apartments (1891-92) as they appeared in 1964 (photographed by richard nickel) compared to the present, with only the south entrance and two-story staircase left standing. sadly, the frank lloyd wright-designed bedford limestone entrance was heavily damaged from falling debris when the majority of building was demolished in 1974. the residence was built for dankmar adler's friends adolph and...

latest photographic images from bldg. 51 archive's chicago architectural ornament survey (caos) are provided below. the ever-expanding photo-documentation project focuses on systematically recording any and all architectural ornament located on historically important 19th and early 20th century extant buildings located in downtown chicago and surrounding neighborhoods. images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 archive. all rights reserved...

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...

when richard nickel meticulously documented the construction of mccormick place in the summer of 1969, he only printed a limited number of large photographs that would i periodically see in various collections and exhibits. when i ran across one this past week, i decided to dig a little deeper into his archive, where i found several long-forgotten contact sheets filled...

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...

richard nickel documented george h. edbrooke's willoughby building (1887) shortly before it was demolished by harvey wrecking in 1964. the 9-story building was built for charles l. willoughby in 1887 at the northwest corner of franklin and jackson. images courtesy of ryerson and burnham, art institute of chicago.

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 oddball. richard nickel documented adler and sullivan's herman braunstein building or flats (1894) shortly before it was demolished around 1965. the building's facade was no doubt designed by an office draftsman (sullivan likely never looked at it). most of the ornament (e.g., pressed bricks, beveled glass transoms, stamped steel cornice, etc.) was stock, but the single carved bedford stone...

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...

images of richard nickel taken from the time he was an ID student to weeks before he was tragically killed salvaging ornament.  courtesy of eric j. nordstrom, tim samuelson, john vinci, and ryerson and burnham. 

detailed exterior photogrpahic survey of adler and sullivan's wainwright building (1891) taken over two days on recent st. louis field trip in june of 2022. images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 archive. all rights reserved. 2022. 

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 cleaned/not cleaned buff-colored spandrels and roofline terra cotta was executed by the northwestern terra cotta company, chicago, ills. wright used the distinctive oversized bead or ball cornice blocks for both waller (1896) and the non-extant francisco terrace apartments (1895-1974), located just north of waller (see salvaged fragment below). the frank lloyd wright-designed waller apartments (located on the west side...