Obvious to anyone who’s ever passed through the city, Chicago possesses one of the richest architectural heritages in the country, rivaled only perhaps by the oldest and largest of the metropolises on the eastern seaboard. This remains true despite a period in the later part of the twentieth century when many of its most distinctive buildings succumbed to neglect or the wrecking ball.

Today, one of the last places to witness these lost architectural masterpieces is in the collection of renowned architectural historian David Garrard Lowe. Recently donated to the Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson and Burnham Archives, the collection is now on display weekdays through June 15, 2018.

According to the Art Institute website, the exhibition highlights a selection of images, architectural plans, and other ephemera from the collection’s “approximately 1,100 objects dating from the 1880s to 1980s including residences, office buildings, hotels, schools, clubs, transportation, infrastructure, . . . [and other historic sites] in Chicago which have been greatly altered or are no longer extant.”

Germaine to the Art Institute’s exhibition, Lowe’s 2010 book Lost Chicago also draws from his vast collection to showcase hundreds of rare photographs and prints which, accompanied by Lowe’s crisp and lively prose, resurrect some of Chicago’s greatest forgotten architectural and cultural landmarks.

“Lost Chicago is more than just another coffee table gift, more than merely a history of the city’s architecture; it is a history of the whole city as a cultural creation.”—New York Times Book Review

See the Art Institute website for more information about visiting the AIC exhibition and find out more about David Gerrard Lowe’s Lost Chicago.