If you care about the history of Chicago and/or American architecture, you will be blown away by this photographic treasure trove of the Windy City's lost legacy. Through fire, ignorance and greed many of the country's most beautiful buildings have been lost. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the merchant princes and the stockyards, George Pullman and Hull House's Jane Addams, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, the Columbian Exposition. These people and events shaped what few would neglect to identify as one of America's architectural centers.

This beautiful book is filled with more than 200 black-and-white photographs of buildings, bridges and other structures tragically allowed to fall into disrepair, destroyed by natural disaster, or bulldozed for parking lots and malls, repeated testaments to the Gordon Curve, predicting that a building is valued most when it is new, that it is least valued and most likely to be razed at approximately 70 years of age, and that if it makes it past that nadir it will begin to rise again in value as a relic and monument.

Each chapter is preceded by several well-written and accessible pages, and each photograph is accompanied by informative paragraphs and quotes. The author delves into Chicago's beginnings as a frontier fort and its rapid growth into a bustling mercantile hive, along the way outlining the history of the peoples and policies of various times from 1803 to the 1970s, organized into ten conceptual and functional groups such as residences, hotels, railway stations, churches, arthouses, The Fire and the fairs.

The photographs are wonderful, many I've never seen before, and each is described well, though the book would benefit by containing more maps. The book is constructed of good heavyweight paper and concludes with picture sources and notes, and a good index. It should be of interest to those with some connection to Chicago, architecture or American history, particularly of the 18th and 19th century.

In Lost Chicago, historian David Lowe explores the architectural and cultural history of America's great "heartland" city. This is a community who architectural heritage was all to often squandered during the last five decades of its growth and evolution. Lowe's elegant, and informative text is wonderfully enhanced with more than 270 rare, period photos and prints (many of them published here for the first time). Lost Chicago is a celebration of the age of Gustavus Swift and Philip D. Armour and the greatest stockyards in the world; when Cyrus McCormick, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, and Marshall Field were the national barons of business and industry; when Prairie Avenue and State streets rivaled New York's Fifth Avenue; when architectural giants ranging from Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright were designing buildings of incomparable excellence and innovation. Lost Chicago is a "must" for students of Chicago history, architecture, and personalities.

First issued in 1975, this book captures the magnitude and the magnificence of Chicago's architectural legacy that has been destroyed (by nature and man). Today Chicago is widely regarded as an architectural jewel (and it is, I live there!) but after reading this book you won't be able to stop imagining how much more amazing the city might be if the Urban Renewal movement of the 1960s and early 1970s had never happened. If you are interested in architechture, Chicago history or urban design and planning, read this book!

Now in focus: A photo-packed history of a city that once was. Part architectural retrospective, part biography, part cultural and social history, this gem is both a brilliant evocation of the noted architect's life and times, as well as a portfolio of unforgettable images of his priceless legacy to the Big Apple, such sa Madison Square Garden and the Washington Square Arch. Author David Garrard Lowe marries stunning photographs with lively prose that brings to life the glittering, and often sensational, world of New York's
"beau mode" --- both city and country ---- in the late 19th and 20thc centuries. Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today ... to buy this book.

This is an excellent portrayal of Stanford White, his childhood, his education, and the brick-by-brick rise of his stellar architectural career. The narrative contains none of the rancor of Suzannah Lessard's portrayal of White, instead focusing on the myriad buildings he designed and his masterful blending of diverse architectural styles. The technical descriptions are balanced by colorful accounts of White's clients, White's personal life, and the maelstrom surrounding White's tragic death. This isn't just an architectural book, it's very readable American history. Dozens of photographs accompany the text.

The book business is really weird. Hundreds of people who know nothing -- the authors of those Chicken Soup and diet books come to mind -- write books that leap out of the bookstores. And scholars who spend years learning about fascinating subjects end up being the 1,456,657th best seller on Amazon.com. I was browsing in my library when I came across this retrospective of Stanford White's work and life in New York. It's a magnificent book, lovingly and intelligently written; the kind of book you can read once a year and continue to enjoy. Anybody who loves history, particularly the history of NYCity should try to get this book. The pictures are terrific. The authors should be proud of themselves.