Richard Cahan

For a couple of decades around the end of the 19th century, the firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan demonstrated a new vision for what cities could be in the twentieth century, designing ornamented skyscrapers and public buildings that added breathtaking beauty to the urban environment. These were the Taj Mahals and Hagia Sophias of American architecture, but only a few remain: the overwhelming majority of them fell to the wrecking ball in the 1950s and '60s. The photographer and show more architecture enthusiast Richard Nickel made it his life's work to photograph and catalog them before they fell, planning a book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan, that was still uncompleted at the time of his death in 1972.

That book was finally published in 2010, but it's out of print and costs hundreds of dollars if you can find a copy. Richard Nickel: Dangerous Years is your next best bet—and maybe even the better one. Richard Cahan and Michael Williams built this book around Nickel's photographs and letters, letting them speak for themselves about Nickel and his work. And they are astonishing. The photographs, beautifully reproduced on the glossy pages of this large-format volume, capture the wonder with which Nickel must have approached their subjects, and the letters help bring to life the passion and seriousness of purpose of a man who most considered an eccentric, if not a crank. I literally gasped as I turned the pages. I've accumulated quite a few "coffee table books" over the years—this is far and away my favorite.

If your tastes in design run from Corbusier to the Swedish school, this isn't the book for you. If you're more fascinated by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright, you owe it to yourself to learn about (or learn more about) Adler and Sullivan, and this book is where to start. And if you've never thought about historic architecture, this book may even turn you into a preservationist. Just marvelous. show less

Be honest, now ... do you think that a book covering the history of the US District Court of the (now Northern) District of California would be an interesting one? Well, that just goes to show how wrong you can be. From the original Admiralty Court to the Gold Rush claims disputes to competing Spanish and Mexican land grants (one which claimed almost all of the new and booming city of San Francisco), from civic and business elites forming vigilante governments, from Chinese immigration cases show more to Prohibition and the Depression, from resistance to multiple wars to the tech boom, "The Court That Tamed The West" is a fascinating story of California through the amazing lens and unique perspective of the federal district court. I'll concede that the writing can be a trifle dry on occasion, but the 160-years' history of the area, as told by its litigation (and the characters that, at times, lie behind these cases and controversies) is too rich to pass up. show less

A marvelous - if somewhat depressing - photographic tour of Chicago's architecturally and historically significant buildings, especially downtown, taken in the 1950s to early 1970s. Depressing, of course, because so many of those buildings have been demolished or, in a few cases, otherwise lost. Most of the buildings photographed are from the era between the Chicago Fire of 1871 when much of the downtown area was obliterated and 1930 when the Great Depression stopped almost all construction show more activity until after World War II.

For me, it's especially interesting since Nickel was active in the time when I worked in the downtown area, roughly 1958-1983 (minus a couple years). On the sunny side, I did get to see many of the buildings first hand and one of my favorites, the Rookery Building on LaSalle Street, still exists and was renovated maybe 20 or so years ago. The interior of that building is stunning, I think. If you have nothing to do on a rainy afternoon Google image search "Rookery Building, Chicago" and you will be rewarded with many fine images.

Included are some photos of people in Chicago and some non-architectural items. Nickel was a wonderful photographer with a good eye for setting, angle, subject matter and the like. Especially for Chicagoans of a certain age, this is a reminder of how much of the architectural heritage of Chicago was lost.

Richard Nickel was killed in 1972 when a floor collapsed above him in Louis Sullivan's Chicago Stock Exchange Building which was then being demolished. The trading room of the Chicago Stock Exchange lives on at the Art Institute of Chicago.

If you are interested in Chicago architecture, the Chicago Architecture Foundation's tours and literature are valuable. The tours are especially interesting, fun and informative. show less

I read this from front to back and then back to front. The latter method made it seem less bleak somehow. Maier's photos truly capture life often showing the grandness in the trivial.