Exhibitions: Blueprints Exhibit Compilation

Blueprints at Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center will be on view through next Saturday, July 2, 2016. This project includes contributions from over 150 individuals – with plans and printouts from around the world. All submissions to the project are displayed in black and white printed from our office's LaserJet – we're happy to now share a full color PDF of all the 2D works from the exhibit: 

Blueprints Exhibit Guide – 293 pages, 237 MB PDF

In addition to the voluminous 2D submissions, there are a variety of fully-realized 3D projects on display in the exhibit from CIADC members. 

Natalie Kling | Antler and steel

Aushra Abouzeid | Bark, acorn, wax, silicone, resin

Sarah Lu | Pine scrap, cardboard, hot glue (model)

Alan Baker, Bruce Church, Jessica Feith, Laura Miracle | Arduino uno, neopixel light ring, infrared range finders, wood, metal, wires

Charles Vitous | Mechanical drawings

Visit CIADC during gallery hours through July 2, or check out the Blueprints Exhibit Guide for a closer look at this project!

News RSS

Blueprints – Opening Reception Saturday, May 21

The next exhibit at Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center opens this Saturday.

Drawing by Charles Vitous

Join us for Blueprints – opening from 4-6 PM – featuring works by  by Aushra Abouzeid, Omer Abramson, Megan Amal, Silvia Amancei and Bogdan Armanu, Gwyneth Anderson, Krista Anderson, Janet Austin, Alan Baker, Bruce Church with Jessica Feith and Laura Miracle, Katarina Balunova, Simon Belleau, George Berlin, Leana Beukema, Jessica Bingham, Mike Blissett, Tyler Bohm, Madeleine Virginia Brown, Michael D. Brown, Peter Burgess, Kelly Burns, Harald Busch, Nicola Buttari, Karen Y. Chan, Marvin Chan, Julietta Cheung, Laura Christman, Collabobo, Derek Conde, Alicia Craft, David Craft, David Curry, Vadim Dadiomov, Carolina Fernandez Del Dago, Stephanie Delgado of Golder Robotics, Leigh Anthony Dehaney, Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani, Gary Duehr, Walter Early, Taylor Ervin, Danielle Euer, Adam Farcus, Leah Floyd and Cristina Molina, Brent Fogt, Traci Fowler, Anton Fromm and Philip Modest Schambelan, Snow Yunxue Fu, Florian Gassmann, Alexander Gregory, Shahira Hammad, Nick Fury, Yhelena Hall, Kelsey Quinn Harrison, Erin Hayden, Sylvie Hayes-Wallace, Liam Herne, Mauricio Herrero, Ruth Hodgins, Cynthia Hsieh, Will Hurt, Sarra Jahedi, Kara Johnson, Mark Johnson, Vincent Johnson, Jonathan Kaiser, Yvette Kaiser Smith, Heidi Kao, Jared Kelley, Dave Kennedy, Joshua Kent, Juneer Kibria, Natalie Kling, Thomas Kong, Beata Kozlowska, Craig Kraft, Dorothy Krakauer and Diane Ponder, Zuzana Krizalkovicova, Gabrielle Kroese, Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson, Beatriz Ledesma, Léon XLVII, Laurie LeBreton, Sarah Lu, David MacDiarmid, Kera MacKenzie and Robert MacKenzie, Deepa Mahajan, Srinivas Mangipudi, Nathan Margoni, Alexander Martin, Matt Martin, Nathan Masse, Emily McCormick, Shannon McFerrin, Timothy McMullen, Vanja Mervič, Donald Morgan, Martha Morimoto, Greg Mowery, Emanuele Napolitano, Jamie Naqvi, Erik Newman, Liam O'Connor, Andre Pace, Julia Paloma, Will Pergl, Klaus Pinter, Tim Porter, Martin Pranga, Dylan Puddu, Jason Ramey, Alice Raymond, Mark Reamy, Maddie Reyna, Carly Ries, Cole Robertson, Matt Runfola, Dominic Sansone, Mihaela Savu, Emily Schulert, Eva Mae Sedjo, Luke Gerard Shemroske, Christopher Shoup, Madhuri Shukla, Larry Shure, Jean Smith, Nathan Smith and Kristin Abhalter, Sanaz Sohrabi, Elena Solomon, Rebecca Spangenthal, Nectarios Stamatopoulos, Marc Sullivan, Morgan Teel, Ruby Thorkelson, Penelope Thrasher, Dunja Trutin, Betsy Vandercook, James Villalpando, Charles Vitous, Angelina Voskopoulos, Daria Wawrzkiewicz, Julie Weber, Sara Willadsen, Chris Wille, Gary Wiseman, Giuseppe Zanoni, Nick Van Zanten, and others.

Antler and steel by Natalie Kling

Blueprints will be on display through Saturday, July 2, 2016. Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center will be accepting submissions for Blueprints throughout the run of the exhibit — all submissions that follow the instructions below will be included in the exhibit:

• Fill out the project form at ciadc.org/blueprints-submissions; and

• Submit an image via email that depicts plans for a greater project.

For more information about Blueprints, please visit ciadc.org/community-current-exhibit; for further info about future CIADC exhibitions, please visit ciadc.org/community-upcoming-exhibits.

News RSS

Blueprints: Constructing the Walls of a Reinforced Concrete Factory on a Horizontal Platform

As we begin preparing materials for the next Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center exhibition Blueprints, CIADC office manager Danielle Euer has done some research on the origins of our building at Ravenswood and Schreiber:

"A reinforced concrete three-story and basement factory building 40 ft. high is now being constructed in Rogers Park, Ill., by laying out the walls on a horizontal platform resting on steel jacks, which raise the completed walls to a vertical position after the concrete has set. The building, which is 34 x 82 ft. in plan, is the first of a series of structures to be built by the Uno Manufacturing Company, which proposes to manufacture various toilet preparations that make a fireproof building desirable. To further this end, United States steel sash, tin-clad doors, concrete floors and partitions are used." 

This description comes from the opening paragraph on page 352 of  Volume 64, Number 13 of Engineering Record, printed in September 1911.

The building was constructed in 1910 by the Monolithic Concrete Construction Company, and Danielle informs us that "toilet preparations" as mentioned above was an early 20th century phrase used for what we would now call perfume. And or: "burnishing soaps, liquid and scouring soaps, silver and brass polishes, furniture polish, writing inks and disinfectants of all kinds," as per Hotel World of December 13, 1919. At any rate, we have cosmetic concerns to thank for the fireproof structure that is the 6433 North Ravenswood of today. 

Further, the Record goes on to describe and depict the construction of the building in thorough detail. For example: "A unit floor system is to be used in which the lower 2 3/8 in. of the 6-in. floor is cast in 3 x 15-ft. slabs in the stock yard, one on top of the other with building paper between each slab." 

One can see the evidence of the building paper on the ceilings throughout 6433 Ravenswood, as above. In the Universal Portland Cement Company Monthly Bulletin of February 1912, Monolith's flat-wall system for constructing the building is further discussed:

"The end walls were first erected and following this, the third wall, weighing about 250 tons, was raised, meeting the overlapping pilasters so perfectly that a slight amount of grout completed a perfect joint."

"The second view shows the platform almost completed for the last wall. Raising was accomplished by means of a five horse-power steam engine, shown at the right, through eleven jacks at about ten-foot centers, beneath the platform, and took but eight hours. It came to the exact final position within a small fraction of an inch."

Clearly, planning goes a long way. Check out the full details from Engineering Record and the Universal Bulletin for the whole story, and send us your own preparations and plans for the Blueprints exhibition, opening Saturday, May 21 at Chicago Industrial Arts and Design Center.

As a parting note, below is a nice confluence of subjects at the end of the Engineering Record article, with the construction costs of the building at 6433 listed directly above the cost of using an Electrically Operated Blue Print Machine in St. Louis, circa 1910:

News RSS

Open Call: Blueprints

Chicago Industrial Arts & Design Center is now accepting submissions for Blueprints — the next group exhibit at CIADC which will explore and celebrate the initial ideas that provide the spark for fully realized, three-dimensional endeavors.

All submissions that follow the instructions below will be included in the exhibit:

• One submission per person;
• Fill out the project form at ciadc.org/blueprints-submissions; and
• Submit a single image via email that depicts plans for a greater project.

Images may depict but are not limited to: notes, sketches, maps, mock ups, outlines, plots, vellums, drafts, floor plans, models, shop drawings, technical drawings, snapshots, schematics, negatives, maquettes, mind maps, roughs, graphs, polaroids, renderings, bar napkins, samples, transfers, proofs, et cetera.

All received images will be printed on 8.5 by 11 inch (215.9 mm x 279.4 mm) letter paper in black and white on a LaserJet printer, and displayed in the CIADC exhibit space along with selected original drawings, models, and finished projects. 

Deadline for works to be included in the opening reception is Monday, May 16, 2016. Any questions, please contact socialmedia@ciadc.org.

The exhibition will run from May 21, 2016 through July 2, 2016. The open call for submissions will remain active throughout the run of the exhibit. 

This exhibition is being organized in collaboration with Roman Susan, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to develop and support new, locally-focused opportunities to display, create, and experience art in Rogers Park. For more information on the organization, please visit romansusan.org.

News RSS