Lynn Becker’s site, “Repeat“: has an article on artist Alfonso Iannelli, who designed show cards for vaudeville acts in the early years of the Twentieth Century. His work for the theater were “a striking synthesis of art nouveau and cubism, highly abstracted, with a stress on saturated primary colors”. John Lloyd Wright saw the posters […]
Not that Illinois Governor Blagojevich doesn’t have bigger problems, but he’s risking the approval of Louis Sullivan fans by apparently reneging on a promise to assist the rebuilding of Pilgrim Baptist Church.
The Governor made an election-year promise that state funds would be given to help rebuild a destroyed church building adjacent to the landmark, a building […]
A few months ago, I mentioned dgunning.org’s fantastic web-based house-by-house tours of Forrest Ave and Kenilworth Ave and Elizabeth Ct.. in Oak Park. Added to the site is a database of historic architecture in the village. A great thing if you’ve ever wanted to find, say, every E. E. Roberts house in Oak Park, or […]
February 15, 2008 – 9:39 am
Today through Monday the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago will have a special “virtual” tour of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
The computer-generated model of the fairgrounds will be projected on a movie screen in a 220-seat museum auditorium. The program allows Snyder to move the screen’s point of view at will, giving viewers […]
February 14, 2008 – 8:50 am
Friday’s Break the Box lecture is “Constructing Architect: Barry Byrne and Unity Temple”, given by Vincent Michael of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago:
Barry Byrne joined Wright’s office as an office boy and was supervising the construction of Unity Temple by age 24. Vincent Michael, John H. Bryan Chair of Historic Preservation at […]
February 9, 2008 – 7:44 am
A free exhibit at the Chicago Architectural Foundation (224 S. Michigan Ave) “Do We Dare Squander Chicago’s Great Architectural Heritage?” through May 9.
The exhibition includes architectural artifacts from the Tribune, Fisher, Santa Fe, and Monadnock buildings, a rare film–featuring photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel, of the demolition of Adler & Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange, photographs […]
February 2, 2008 – 7:39 pm
Arcspace has a page on the Reliance Building (now the home of Burnham Hotel (don’t follow the link — you can’t afford it)), one of Chicago’s great Burnham and Root designs. The building underwent an award-winning restoration in the mid-to-late 1990s, and the page includes a number of photographs showing the beautifully restored interior and […]
January 24, 2008 – 2:00 pm
Training sessions for Wright Plus volunteers begin Saturday, February 2 and continue for the next five Saturdays. Call 708-848-1976 ext. 223 or e-mail volunteer@wrightplus.org. From what I’ve heard, volunteers for the Preservation Trust are very well-trained, so this would be a great opportunity to earn a boatload about Wright and Oak Park history.
I’ll, of course, be […]
January 20, 2008 – 8:58 am
PrairieMod has posted the schedule for Unity Temple’s lecture series “Break the Box”. Last year, each lecture was $15 for members of the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, $20 for non-members (the website hasn’t been updated for 2008).
There are eight remaining lectures in this year’s series, and two should be of particular interest: Paul Kruty, […]
January 13, 2008 – 3:40 pm
The Great silence continues — no Frank Lloyd Wright news; why I’m surprised that a guy fifty years dead isn’t making news, I don’t know, but I am.
So, to fill the lonely hours, there is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, an amazing web-based collection of articles on every aspect of the history of our favorite city. […]