Buffalo’s television station WGZR has a story on Sullivan’s Guaranty Building in downtown. Worth watching.
Guaranty Building
Louis Sullivan, NY
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Sep 122011
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Chicago, Louis Sullivan, Restoration/Renovation
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Sep 082011
More than five years after a devastating fire, reconstruction of Adler Sullivan’s great Pilgrim Baptist Church is getting underway. This first phase will cost about 1/10 of the projected cost of the full restoration.
Jul 292011
The Louis Sullivan-designed Old Home Bank Building in Newark, Ohio is receiving a $431,000 credit from the State of Ohio towards a $2.2 million rehab.
In a column in late 2009, Blair Kamin printed a letter from a reader about a visit to the bank followed by comments form Tim Samuelson on the state of the building.
If you’ve never seen the building, here’s a pretty good set of photos on Flickr to introduce you to it.
Jul 082011
Target’s red bullseye logo will soon adorn Louis Sullivan’s iconic commercial building on State St., the former Carson Pirie Scott store (now named the Sullivan Center).
Target’s plans are low key, and preservationists have praised the proposed signage:
“This is an example,” said David Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois Historical Preservation Agency. “It’s a historical building with ample life left in it, and it can fulfill a need.” [ ... ] “They have been very responsive to preservation concerns,” Blanchette said. “We’re OK with that particular design. It does not adversely impact the historical character of the building.” Besides the Target bull’s-eye in the rotunda, artist renderings of plans show red awnings over the sidewalk. Whether those awnings will bear the Target logo is up for debate. And there is an option for long, drapelike wall hangings. “I don’t think it’s going to be screaming out at anybody too badly,” Harboe said. “I’m interested to see it myself.” Target officials have every intention of blending in, a spokeswoman said. The building will be the first U.S. historical landmark to house a Target store, spokeswoman Amy Reilly said. “We’re honored to be part of the preservation of a Chicago treasure, and we want to respect the history and architecture of that building,” Reilly said.
The Harboe quoted above is Gunny Harboe, a preservation architect who worked on several stages of the restoration of the Sullivan Center, and several other high-profile restoration projects (including the Rookery Building).
Blair Kamin, who once was very slightly wrong in 1987 but never since, has written positively about the plans.
Some details have been approved only in concept, meaning that Target will have to provide the city with further, specific details.
Jun 182011
Article and nice collection of photos of Sullivan’s National Farmer’s Bank in Owatonna, Iowa.
A Marion Mahoney Griffith article by Alice T. Friedman — I didn’t have time to read this (remind me about it when I get back) but it looks seriously good. Great stuff for your Sunday morning.
Apr 262011
Lee Bay has an article on the recently-announced plans to restore the Adler & Sullivan Pilgrim Baptist Church. While the plan exists, the funding does not. Total cost of the restoration is expected to exceed $30 million.
The church has a website with a few historic photos, details on the planned reconstruction and an opportunity to donate towards the rebuilding effort.
A New Plan for Pilgrim
Chicago, Louis Sullivan, Restoration/Renovation
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Mar 312011
The Chicago Tribune reports that the congregation of the Adler & Sullivan Pilgrim Baptist Church that was destroyed by fire in 2006, is still hoping to rebuild the landmark. Their new plan will be unveiled this Sunday.
The church’s architect for the latest effort is Frank Christopher Lee of the Chicago firm Johnson & Lee. The firm declined to comment. Cynthia Jones, vice chairwoman of the church’s board of trustees, said some work will begin this year but declined to elaborate. The church, completed at 33rd Boulevard and Indiana Avenue in 1891 as the Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv Synagogue, was heavily damaged in January 2006 after workers repairing the roof accidentally set it ablaze. The limestone and brick exterior walls still stand, held up by a steel structural support system. The congregation, which now holds services in a community center across the street from the church, has been engaged in grassroots fundraising efforts to pay for the rebuilding, said Ward Miller, co-author of a book about the works of Sullivan and Adler. “The congregation is really dedicated to preserving the church,” said Miller, executive director of the Richard Nickel Committee, a nonprofit group that administers an archive of architectural photographs and documents. The congregation totals about 300, according to Jones, and fundraising has been a tremendous effort for the aging congregation, Vaughn said.
Sullivan’s (?) Mystery Clock
Chicago, Louis Sullivan
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Mar 232011
Blair Kamin’s “Cityscapes” weblog has a post on the recently discovered drawings for a clock on the exterior of Sullivan’s Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. store on State St.
Ward Miller, co-author of the Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan, found the drawings, with two different versions of the clock, in boxes of miscellaneous material given to him by Carson’s when they left the site in 2007.
Miller thinks the sketches’ author could have been Sullivan or his chief assistant, George Grant Elmslie. Sullivan expert Tim Samuelson isn’t so sure, emailing that the ornamental details in the sketches “suggest somebody imitating Sullivan’s work, rather than something Sullivan himself would have created.” What we do know is that the sketches bear the stamp of the Winslow Bros. Co., which typically fabricated Sullivan’s ornamental ironwork. And they are dated June 5, 1906, indicating that the proposed clock might have been a weapon in a turn-of-the-century version of “Store Wars”—Carsons versus Marshall Field’s.
The sketches can be viewed on Kamin’s site.
A Bit of the Unseen Auditorium Building
Chicago, History, Louis Sullivan
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Mar 142011
Lynn Becker’s site, Architecture Chicago Plus, has a post on a bit of Louis Sullivan architecture that has been revealed after a structure next to the Auditorium Building. He’s even photographed a loggia where Adler, Sullivan, Wright and others may have looked out over the city.
PrairieMod Reviews Two Books
Books, Chicago, Louis Sullivan
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Mar 072011
PrairieMod has reviews of two new books, both from Pomegranate.
One is a single-site book, Building the Pauson House: The Letters of Frank Lloyd Wright and Rose Pauson, of particular interest since the Pauson house was lost to fire nearly seventy years ago. Other other book is the newest by Patrick F. Cannon and James Caufield (the authors of Hometown Architect , Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple and Prairie Metropolis ), Louis Sullivan: Creating a New American Architecture.
With a great selection of images, the PrairieMod post gives a good feel for the content of each book.
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