One of-a-kind: ArchiTech Gallery of Architectural Art closes in December; but last exhibition - Burnham, Sullivan and Wright - closes Saturday

 A city's character is built out of the unique things that raise it above the generic underpinnings common to all.  As of the end of December, Chicago will lose one of its unique things with the closing, after sixteen years, of the ArchiTech Gallery of Architectural Art.  You only have through this Saturday, November 28th, to see the gallery's final show, Burnham, Sullivan and Wright, featuring "drawings, blueprints, photographs and objects" drawn from three of the architects associated with Chicago throughout the world.

The show is typical of those put on by the gallery since its opening in December of 1998, initially drawing on the collection of the short-lived Kelmscott Gallery, which specialized in works of Frank Lloyd Wright and was located in the former Krause Music Store,  whose ornamented facade was the last major design of Wright's Leiber-Meister ("beloved master"), Louis Sullivan.  ArchiTech owner David Jameson was manager at the Kelmscott, and for nine years ran the vintage shop Gallery Kitsch, "known for its outrageous fashion and decor".

Krause Music Store, former home to Kelmscott Gallery

Not long after opening ArchiTech, Jameson acquired the archives of sculptor, architect and designer Alfonso Iannelli, ultimately resulting in the 2013 book, Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design, one of
the essential volumes on Chicago's cultural history.  Lavishly illustrated, it covers, often in never-before-revealed detail, the life and work of both Iannelli and his equally talented wife Margaret.  Central figures in their time but then largely forgotten, Jameson's book does major service in restoring them to their rightful position in the timeline of Chicago artists and advocates.

The exhibition archive section of the ArchiTech website is a treasure trove both of amazing images and highly personal and informative essays on a wide range of topics, from Frank Lloyd Wright, to Bertrand Goldberg, iconic photographers Hedrich Blessing, Napoleon's engravings of the monuments of ancient Egypt, lesser-known architects and designers such as Alfred Browning Parker and Henry Glass, and even architectural toys.

I actually had a smaller version of the white plastic Skyline set when I was a kid.

I'm hoping the website will survive even after the gallery closes, but I'm making myself a pdf just to be safe.

As I'll be writing more on next week when I take on the controversy over the Lucas Museum, Chicago's pretensions to being a world-class supporter of architecture are often punctured by its real-life actions, and the way the ArchiTech Gallery has often had to struggle speaks to this fact.

I've never been astute enough financially to acquire enough capital to become a collector, but if you love architecture in general and Chicago architecture in particular, and would some of its history for yourself, there are wonderful things to be found at ArchiTech, and you'll find it well worth your while to stop by and have David walk you through his collection.  December 31st is the gallery's published "final closing", but the last show, Burnham, Sullivan and Wright, is up only through today, Friday, November 27th and Saturday, November 28th, noon to 5:00 p.m.

The ArchiTech Gallery is something quite special.  We shall not see its like again.

ArchiTech Gallery of Architectural Art

730 North Franklin, Suite 200

Last Three Days for Kickstarter Campaign to Restore Alfonso Iannelli's graveside memorial

Color pencil rendering by Alfonso Iannelli

 2013 has been the year that brought Chicago sculptor, designer and architect Alfonso Iannelli out of the shadows, with both a major exhibition at the Cultural Center curated by Tim Samuelson, and a lavishly illustrated monograph by David Jameson, Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design.

Now, there's only only this Saturday to help a Kickstarter campaign to restore Iannelli's monument to Georgia Guard make its $15,000 goal.  Iannelli created the memorial in 1927 in Park Ridge's Town of Maine Cemetery for the child of a close friend. The plot is also Iannelli's own final unmarked resting place.

Richard Nickel photograph

Ultimately, the larger plan includes creating a marker for Iannelli.  For now, the Kickstarter campaign, administered through Preservation Chicago, hopes to begin to restore the cast-concrete monument to Georgia Guard, which, having reached the end of its own natural life, has weathered to the point of near collapse.

The Kickstarter campaign must reach its $15,000 goal by 11:00 a.m. EST, this Saturday, November 23rd, or the funding will be lost.  You can read more and contribute here. 

UPDATE [11/23/2013]:  With 90 minutes to go, the campaign has met and exceeded its goal, with $17,036 in pledges.

Read More:

Artist Rediscovered: Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design

Creation and the Politics of Gender:  Modernism's Messengers - the Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli.

Last Chance to see Modernism's Messengers: Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli (complete with curator tour) , plus new Alfonso Iannelli monograph

Update [Tuesday, August 6, 5:05 p.m.):  It appears there has been a leak at the Block Museum.   All art work is being moved to a safe location.  Designing the Future has closed prematurely, and Saturday's event with David Van Zanten has had to be cancelled.


Still adding great stuff to the August Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

click images for larger view

Two essential exhibitions are entering their final days, and AIA Chicago is marking their imminent closing with two rare curator tours.  This Thursday, August 8th, Tim Samuelson will be leading a curator's tour of Modernism's Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, which closes Saturday, August 17th.  As we've written before, it's a don't miss overview on the often troubled lives and far-too-little known - until now - work of two important Chicago artists.

2013 is becoming the year of the Iannellis' rediscovery.  Late on Thursday the 8th, at the Cliff

Dwellers, there will be a book signing of the just published Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design, by David Jameson with an introduction by Tim Samuelson.  We hope to be writing soon about this marvelous, lavishly illustrated (350+ color plates), but Snap upyour copy now - I'm hearing the first printing is selling briskly.

There's an even shorter window to see another great show, at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum on Northwestern University's Evanston campus.  Drawing the Future: Chicago Architecture on the International Stage, 1900-1925, runs only through this Sunday, August 11th.

It's an arresting overview of the work of Marion Mahony, Tony Garnier and others. (Including one of those illustrations by Jules Guerin that launched Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago into the public imagination, where it has endured ever since.  Seen a rare opportunity to see it at its original scale, which gives a much bolder impression than the version folded into the book.)


This Saturday the 10th, AIA Chicago has also arranged for Drawing the Future curator David Van Zanten to give a gallery talk of his show, which is a great way to wrap up the run.

And while we don't cover architectural tours - there's just too many of them - on Sunday the 18th, the is mounting a South Side Jewish Chicago tour with Herb Eiseman and architect/preservationist Carey Wintergreen, starting in 1847's State Street, site of the Midwest's first synagogue, and heading down to Hyde Park and South Shore.  $40.00 for members, $45.00 non-members. Information here.
Chicago Jewish Historical Society

Even in the middle of summer, this next week is jammed-pack, with a screening of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth at the Graham on Wednesday the 7th, and the Japanese film Termae Romae at the Cultural Center Thursday and again on Saturday the 10th, the same day there's a panel discussion of Design Education at the Institute of Design at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, and Ilianna Kwaske talking about Behind Closed Doors: The Psychology of Our Domestic Spaces at MCA.

Also on Thursday the 8th, David Bagnall will talk about From Artistic to the Prairie Home: Domestic Interiors of Chicago's Gilded Age, at Fourth Presbyterian's Gratz Center.

We've also added a number of events tied in with the Cultural Center's show Spontaneous Interviews.  Add it all up and there's now nearly three dozen great items still to check out on the August Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

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Opening Saturday: Modernism's Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli

click images for larger view

It's like the the folks over at the Chicago Cultural Center were trying to keep it a secret, but this Saturday, May 18 at 10:00 a.m. marks the opening of a highly anticipated show on the work of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli.  Best remembered today for Alfonso's collaboration with Frank Lloyd Wright on Midway Gardens, the Iannelli's actually had over half a century of making interesting art.

The last time I checked, the show was a collaboration between Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson and scholar and collector David James, author of  a companion book, Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design, scheduled to be published this coming July.  (I had the privilege of previewing some of the pages, and it looks to be spectacular.)

No curators are mentioned in the  sketchy information on the exhibition's page on the Cultural Center website, but I can't believe either Samuelson or Jameson had anything to do with the shockingly inane description that manages to say nothing of the qualities of the art but tries to sell the show as some kind of pulpy True Romance . . .

Opening on May 18 and continuing through August 27 in the Chicago Rooms at the Chicago Cultural Center, (78 E. Washington) is Modernism�s Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli � 1910 to 1965.  In this show, one discovers not only the love they both had for modernism, but also the love that they had for each other.

Despite very different backgrounds and very different approaches to life, their work together and apart displayed such a partnership that one could not tell where Alfonso�s work ended, and Margaret�s began.

Yep, that's the entire description.  There's more information on the press release, which reveals near its end the real reason we should find the exhibition interesting. It's because the show . . .

emphasizes a strong tenet of the Chicago Cultural Plan which is attracting and retaining artists. That is a practice in Chicago�s history and a goal of today. Additionally, this exhibit promotes the values and impact of culture and fosters cultural innovation.

Ah yes, heaven is the land of a bureaucrat's non sequiturs.  The Iannelli's lived to confirm the tenets of the Chicago Cultural Plan, apparently now the high point of human evolution.  Along with �the values and impact of culture�� and �cultural innovation�.  And �modernism�. Mustn't forget modernism.  And motherhood, and cuddly bunnies.  Did I mention there might also be some art involved?

Actually, the personal saga of Alfonso and Margaret is a dramatic and poignant story, but if that was all they had going for them, we wouldn't be remembering them now.  The work, ultimately, is what matters, and in the case of the Iannelli's it's fascinating stuff.  I expect to be at the front of the line to check it out on Saturday.  To get you started, here's a couple of our past articles:

Read:
Artist Rediscovered - Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design
Iannelli (and Wright) out of the Storeroom