“A building is not, of course, a living thing but buildings can die and a fascinating, indeed haunting, new book offers us a graveyard in black and white.
“‘Lost in America: Photographing the Last Days of Our Architectural Treasures’ is the latest visually striking, marvelously written offering from Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, who have been at this for more than 20 years with their CityFiles Press.
“Cahan, a former photo editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Williams, a writer and designer, claim to have never had any arguments in that time, ‘except on the basketball court.’ Operating in the increasingly chaotic book publishing realm, they have been craftsmen of the highest order and have produced a steady stream of books.
“Many of their initial offerings had a strong Chicago focus but that has expanded. ‘Our first books are firmly Chicago books and some of our great photographers like Vivian Maier,’ Cahan told me. ‘But in time we began to explore issues that we felt were important to America, such as the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, slavery and the civil rights movement.’
“‘Lost in America’ is 208 remarkable and handsomely packaged pages, beginning with a short foreword by Catherine Lavoie, who writes, “Buildings mark who we are as a society. Buildings have the ability to inspire change, facilitate social reform, fuel cultural movements, or simply help us envision better ways of living.”
“‘These are not all landmarks,’ Cahan tells me. ‘But they are important buildings in American history and communities. They may not be the greatest architecture, but they each tell the story… of plantations and slave quarters, ballparks, music halls, steel mills.’ And more.
“Naturally, Chicago is featured and among our ghosts are the Republic Building, Garrick Theater, Stock Exchange Building, Granada Theater, Dearborn Station Trainshed and First Regiment Armory.
“Gone, gone, gone, so many buildings. (Also see 1975’s “Lost Chicago” by David Garrard Lowe). But not likely to be forgotten since Cahan and Williams provide sparkling and informative text to accompany all the photos, sort of like mini-biographies or, if you will, ghost stories.
“Not enough, in part because, as they write on that final page, ‘We believe buildings reflect our culture and mark our spot in the universe.'” (Kogan, Chicago Tribune, 5/7/24)
“‘In this arresting collection, historians Cahan and Williams spotlight architectural jewels of America’s yesteryear in photographs taken between 1933 and the present by the government-run Historic American Buildings Survey… While a dignified beauty suffuses these pages, a looming sense of tragedy is inescapable as well: ‘a number of these structures were fought for… most slipped away unnoticed.’ It’s a bittersweet record that gives worthy due to the spaces that shaped a bygone era.” — Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)
“Lost in America documents the life and death of America’s architectural and historic treasures. The book is based on a remarkable archive created by the Historic American Building Survey, a Works Progress Administration project that still documents the nation’s most important buildings.
“Lost in America focuses on 100 buildings that have been torn down over the past 90 years. Some―like New York’s Penn Station and Chicago’s Stock Exchange―were majestic. Others―like a tiny bridge in rural Montana and a small farmstead razed for Denver’s International Airport―were modest. But they all reflected America’s story. Using haunting black-and-white images by the nation’s top architectural photographers, the book presents a timely look at what we’ve lost.”
Hardcover
208 pages
Online price $40.00
Also available: a special slipcase with a Richard Nickel photo of Chicago’s Republic Building signed by the authors in a limited edition of 100.
Online Price: $100.00
Read the full column at Chicago Tribune
- Column: New book ‘Lost in America’ offers ghost stories of buildings in Chicago and across the country, Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune, 5/7/24
- Link to purchase Lost in America: Photographing the Last Days of Our Architectural Treasures by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams at CityFiles Press
- Before the Wrecking Ball Swung, A new volume of photographs taken for the Historic American Buildings Survey captures the program’s wide influence on architectural culture, Martin Filler, The New York Review, 11/9/23