Postcard Past / Present Photo

Dec 6, 2023 Copenhagen

The Interior of Copenhagen Central Station, Denmark

Chief Architect of the DSB Heinrich Wenck wanted to create a station "suitable for Denmark–for our country's situation and its character–so that the last impression that departing Danes got was the same as that which met the arriving foreigners: something Danish”.

Oct 17, 2023 Chicago Illinois

Bush Temple of Music, Chicago

For all its Châteauesque grandeur–and as Chicago’s only French Renaissance Revival commercial building, it’s certainly grand–the initial version of the Bush Temple of Music was…kind of a failure?

Oct 9, 2023 Chicago Illinois From the archive

Montgomery Ward & Co., Chicago Ave. and the River, Chicago

A powerful work of utilitarian architecture, a pioneering use of reinforced concrete and a postcard featuring a never-built tower–this is a good one.

Oct 3, 2023 Quad Cities Illinois

Second Avenue, Rock Island, Illinois

A once-stately hotel demolished and replaced by a steel-and-glass office building, an Italianate survivor still chugging along nearly 150 years later after a recent rehab, and between them a 1970s pedestrian mall intended to revitalize downtown Rock Island as commerce moved to the suburbs.

Sep 19, 2023 Chicago Illinois From the archive

Sunken Garden, Humboldt Park, Chicago

One of Jens Jensen’s least favorite works, he called Humboldt Park’s sunken formal garden “a folly of my youth”–and that was before half a century of neglect filled in the water court and ripped up the flower beds.