John Vinci: Life and Landmarks is the first authoritative survey of the life and work of one of Chicago’s most acclaimed architects and preservationists. Long awaited by scholars as well as by architecture aficionados, John Vinci provides an intimate look at an architect whose portfolio spans half a century and includes the restoration of some of the city’s most important historic structures as well as numerous award-winning original projects. This illustrated biography traces Vinci’s origins as a child of Italian immigrants on Chicago’s South Side and his coming of age at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which was then under the direction of the legendary Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It follows his career through his subsequent immersion in the historic preservation movement and the work of such early Chicago architects as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and John Wellborn Root. Vinci’s pioneering restoration projects include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Home Studio, Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room and the Carson Pirie Scott Building, and Root’s Monadnock Building. His original work, meanwhile, includes notable buildings such as the Arts Club of Chicago, numerous award-winning residences, and more than fifty major exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and other museums. John Vinci: Life and Landmarks also features portraits and profiles of Vinci’s friends and mentors over the years, including the architectural photographer Richard Nickel, the landscape designer Alfred Caldwell, the Art Institute curators James Speyer and Anne Rorimer, the architects Crombie Taylor and Myron Goldsmith, and the City of Chicago’s cultural historian Tim Samuelson. The book includes new photos of twenty projects by noted architectural photographer William Zbaren as well as more than one hundred vintage photos and floorplans from Vinci’s personal archives, many never before published. A comprehensive catalogue raisonné rounds out this handsome and definitive work.

John Vinci: Life and Landmarks

Arts & Photography

Sharoff, Robert

Zbaren, William

Architecture

Northwestern University Press

Detroit's architecture reflects Detroit's role in the early years of the twentieth century as the country's leading industrial center, the place where, with the rise of the automobile industry, the future was happening. The metropolitan Detroit area was also home to some of the largest private fortunes assembled in the modern age. All of this is visible in the cutting-edge structures built to serve the needs of the modern business community that was committed to innovation and new processes. Detroit's public buildings-its museums, libraries, schools, and monuments-are second to none in terms of their overall scale, materials, and detailing. Hotels, stores, theaters, and other commercial venues display a breezy cosmopolitanism consistent with the city's position as both a technology hub and a crossroads of immigration. Yet despite this remarkable legacy, many of downtown Detroit's architecturally significant buildings are under threat of demolition and have been placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2005 list of America's most endangered landmarks.
American City: Detroit Architecture, 1845-2005 is intended to showcase a Detroit that might surprise many readers and bring long-overdue attention to the city's heritage of fine design. In 90 stunning full-color photographs, the book documents the innovative features of fifty of Detroit's most impressive buildings. An introductory essay offers an overview of the city's architectural history and outlines the social forces and the personalities that helped shape the city's built environment. The heart of American City, however, is the photography, which brings Detroit's architecture to life in gorgeous detail. Accompanying text identifies each building and provides basic information such as date, location, and architect, pointing out features that make the building of particular interest and importance.
Buildings photographed: Fort Wayne; Lighthouse Supply Depot; R. N. Traver Building; Wright-Kay Building; R. Hirt Jr. Company Building; Chauncey Hurlbut Memorial Gate; Detroit Cornice and Slate Company; Wayne County Building; Savoyard Center; Belle Isle Conservatory; Harmonie Centre; Dime Building; L. B. King and Company Building; Michigan Central Railroad Station; R. H. Fyfe's Shoe Store Building; Orchestra Hall; Detroit Public Library, Main Branch; Cadillac Place; Women's City Club; Banker's Trust Company Building; James Scott Fountain; Buhl Building; Detroit Institute of Arts; Fox Theater; Penobscot Building; Park Place Apartments; Guardian Building; David Stott Building; Fisher Building; Horace H. Rackham Building; Coleman A. Young Municipal Center; Turkel House; McGregor Memorial Conference Center; Lafayette Park; Cobo Hall and Convention Center; One Woodward; First Federal Bank Building; Frank Murphy Hall of Justice; Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls Building; Kresge-Ford Building, College for Creative Studies; SBC Building; Renaissance Center; Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain; Detroit Receiving Hospital; Coleman A. Young Community Center; One Detroit Center; John B. Dingell VA Hospital and Medical Center; Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History; Compuware Building; and Cass Technical High School

American City: Detroit Architecture, 1845-2005

Photography & Video

Wayne State University Press

Architectural photojournalists Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren, creators of the popular "American City" series, use the renovation of the architect Mies van der Rohe’s final commission, Chicago’s IBM Building, into a five-star Langham hotel as the jumping off point for a wide-ranging coffee table book that examines the noted Modernist’s life and work in his adopted city. Eventually, Mr. Sharoff concludes, Mies’s vision "came to define Chicago in much the same way that Bernini’s does Rome and Haussmann’s permeates Paris." The book also looks at Mies’s career as an educator at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he was head of the architecture school for two decades beginning in the late 1930s. The book is illustrated with three stunning new photo portfolios by the award-winning Mr. Zbaren that capture key works by Mies as well as by his students and acolytes at firms such as Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill, C. F. Murphy &amp; Associates and Schipporeit-Heinrich Associates. In addition to the IBM Building, the structures include the Farnsworth House, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Crown Hall, the John Hancock Center, the Willis Tower, the Richard J. Daley Center and Lake Point Tower.

Last Is More: Mies, IBM, and the Transformation of Chicago

History

Americas

Images Publishing Dist Ac

A monograph on the work of Lucien Lagrange.

Lucien Lagrange: Search For Elegance: The Search for Elegance: The Master Architect Series

-Showcases 50 of St. Louis' most important structures ranging from nineteenth century masterpieces to groundbreaking designs in the Modern style -One of the most architecturally impressive cities in the United States American City: St. Louis Architecture is the first large-format book on the city's architecture since the 1920s and includes over 100 new color photos and text for 50 of the city's most important structures. These range from such nineteenth century masterpieces as Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building, Alfred Mullet's Old Post Office and Theodore Link's Union Station to Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch, Tadao Andao's Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Building and Maya Lin's recently completed Ellen Clark Hope Plaza. An introductory essay provides biographical and historical information on the city's rich architectural heritage in an accessible, non-academic style.

American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Design (American City Series)