The Art of Architecture: Perspectives on Sullivan and Nickel
Saturday, October 22 at the Murphy Auditorium (50 E. Erie) 10:00 am- 6:00 pm Buy Tickets $50 General Audience || $40 Member || $25 Student
This day-long symposium explores important themes in the architecture of Louis Sullivan and the photography by Richard Nickel that documented the destruction of many of Adler & Sullivan’s most important Chicago buildings. The Art of Architecture: Perspectives on Sullivan & Nickel will bring together experts to discuss topics as diverse as the power of photography, the neuroscience behind ornamentation, and the impact and benefits of preservation on the urban built environment.
All tickets include free admission to the Museum between October 21-23. The event will be held in the Murphy Auditorium at 50 E. Erie.
Note: One ticket gives you entry into the entire day’s program. Panel sessions are not sold separately.
Schedule and Speakers*
10:00 am Opening Remarks
10:10 am Exhibiting Sullivan and Nickel with David Hanks, Tim Samuelson, David Travis, and John Vinci. The Art Institute of Chicago’s Alison Fisher will moderate.
11:30 am-1:00 pm Break and Exhibition Visit
Light lunch fare and snacks will be available for purchase at the Murphy or guests may enjoy neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops. Your ticket grants you free admission to the Museum so please visit the exhibition!
1:00 pm Louis Sullivan, Color, and the City Street with David van Zanten
2:00 pm Ornament and Emotion in the Built Environment with Matt McNicholas
3:15 pm Voices from the Richard Nickel Committee with Richard Cahan, Ward Miller, Tim Samuelson, and John Vinci. WTTW’s Geoffrey Baer will moderate this session.
4:30 pm Meet the Authors and Closing Reception
6:00 pm Program Ends
We recommend purchasing any books you would like to be signed in advance of the symposium. We will have them waiting for you in the Museum Store. You may click this link to our online store to purchase books written by Richard Cahan, Tim Samuelson, and John Vinci: *Book Presale* The Art of Architecture: Perspectives on Sullivan and N – Driehaus Museum Store
*Please check back often for updates to schedule, topics, and speakers
About the Speakers
Richard Cahan spent years researching Richard Nickel’s photographs, documents and letters, interviewing Nickel’s family and friends, and visiting the Louis Sullivan buildings that Nickel so loved. Cahan is the author or co-author of more than twenty books, including three about Nickel: They All Fall Down, Richard Nickel’s Chicago and Richard Nickel Dangerous Years. He worked for the Chicago Sun-Times for sixteen years, primarily as the paper’s picture editor, and was the founder and director of the documentary project CITY 2000. For the past 20 years, he has been co-publisher of CityFiles Press.
David A. Hanks has been President of David A. Hanks & Associates since its founding in 1980. Previously, he held curatorial positions at The Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and has served as curatorial consultant to various museums including the Smithsonian Institution, for which he curated and organized the exhibitions Innovative Furniture in America and The Decorative Designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and authored the accompanying catalogues. He has also served on the curatorial teams for such major exhibitions as In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement for The Metropolitan Museum of Art; High Styles: Twentieth-Century American Design for the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1876-1916 for the Princeton University Art Museum; and Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art for the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Matt McNicholas, owner and principal ornamenter of McNicholas Architects, Chicago, has created designs and ornamental details for buildings in 16 countries and on four continents. Over his career he has traveled extensively, lecturing on the subject of architectural ornament and detail and presenting at forums such as Greenbuild, the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, the Classical Traditions Conference, Institute of Classical Architecture & Art chapters, and the Congress for New Urbanism. Matt earned a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Architectural Design and Urbanism from the University of Notre Dame and holds a Certificate in Neuroscience for Architecture from the New School of Architecture and Design. Matt serves as the Facilities Committee Chair for the Auditorium Theatre as well as on the Board of Directors for the same. He also serves on the Board of Directors and chairs the Facilities Committee for Fenwick High School, a 1929 collegiate gothic masterpiece. He also sits on the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art Board of Fellows.
Ward Miller has led Preservation Chicago as its Executive Director since 2013. Previously, he was a founding board member and served as Board President of Preservation Chicago. From 2003 to 2011, he was the Executive Director of the Richard Nickel Committee where he co-authored the highly-acclaimed 2010 publication of The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan and prepared the archives of the architectural photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel for the Ryerson and Burnham Library Collections at The Art Institute of Chicago. Specializing in the restoration, remodeling, and reuse of historic buildings, Miller worked for 20 years as a project architect and project manager at Vinci-Hamp Architects in Chicago (1983-2003).
Tim Samuelson is the director of the Chicago Architectural Preservation Archive and has served as Chicago’s cultural historian since the late Lois Weisberg—then Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs—created that position for him in 2002. A city treasure in his own right, Samuelson has been involved in local preservation efforts for nearly his entire life, and played a significant role as part of the city’s Commission on Chicago Landmarks in the 1980s.
David Travis is the retired Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago where he directed photography programs and acquisitions from 1972 until 2008. He was the founding curator of the Department of Photography in 1975, and directed and designed the major state-of-the art renovation of the galleries, study room, laboratory, and vaults in 1982. This model has since been copied throughout the world. In his administrative duties he has paid particular attention to the development of a strong program in photographic conservation, as well as the use of the collection in the study room, which now boast an attendance of about 2,000 people per year. After retirement in 2008 from the Art Institute of Chicago, he began teaching history of photography at Columbia College Chicago as an Adjunct Professor.
David Van Zanten taught courses in American and European architecture and urbanism after 1800. He has contributed to the exhibition catalogues The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1975, 1977) and The Second Empire (1979-1980). His Designing Paris: The Architecture of Duban, Labrouste, Duc, and Vaudoyer won the 1988 Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. He extended this work in Building Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the French Capital, 1830-1870 (Cambridge University Press, 1994). His book Sullivan’s City: The Meaning of Ornament for Louis Sullivan was published by W. W. Norton in 2000. He pushed the issues broached there further in his contributions to the 2013 Block Museum exhibition, Drawing the Future.
John Vinci, FAIA, is a principal of his own architecture firm, Vinci-Hamp Architects. Since 1969, Vinci has an established reputation for excellence in the restoration of historic architecture and the design of new buildings. His restoration work includes Louis Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, and numerous projects for the Art Institute of Chicago. Mr. Vinci’s new buildings include the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, the Arts Club of Chicago and several award-winning residences. Mr. Vinci received his Bachelor of Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1960. He was elected to the AIA College of Fellows in 1992. In 2014, Vinci and Philip Hamp were recognized as Chicagoans of the Year in architecture for their decades of work in preserving seminal Chicago buildings.