Publications by Preservation Futures
Learning from the Damen Silos
Chicago’s iconic Damen Silos have been whittled down to one structure and cranes are poised to destroy the last silo—the unfortunate result of a series of failures by the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago.
Virgil Abloh, Edith Farnsworth, and Midcentury Modernism
Elizabeth Blasius reviews two new books threaded together by Midcentury Modernism: Make it Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh (Crown, 2025) by Robin Givhan and Almost Nothing: Reclaiming Edith Farnsworth (University of Illinois Press, 2025) by Nora Wendl.
Crowdsourcing Black History Along the Chesapeake Bay
Preservation Futures details the firm’s work documenting African American history in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Stonewall: Movement, Monument, Myth
Elizabeth Blasius visits the Stonewall National Monument and revisits the LGBTQ Theme Study during a critical moment in United States history.
Florence Scala: The Joan of Arc of Chicago’s Near West Side
In an era when superhighways, urban renewal, and public and private universities were dramatically changing the nature of Chicago’s neighborhoods, Florence Scala (1918–2007), a Chicago-born “Italian Fishwife,” was brave enough—and angry enough—to fight the systems in power looking to destroy her neighborhood.
The 1900 Galveston Storm: United States’ First Modern Natural Disaster
The 1900 Galveston Storm, unprecedented in intensity and damage, was the first US natural disaster of the twentieth century. The event created a prospective framework for modern natural disaster recovery
A History of Preservation in Chicago
Elizabeth Blasius shares a history of preservation in Chicago, beginning with its origins in the stewardship of historic buildings by Black Chicagoans during the Great Migration, and looking to the future through the lens of a parking garage designed by Stanley Tigerman.
The Century and Consumers Buildings: Their Complicated Saga and the Precedent They Might Set
As the federally mandated review processes evaluating the demolition of Chicago’s Century and Consumers Buildings reach a conclusion, Elizabeth Blasius provides an overview of the buildings’ complicated saga and examines what is at stake if they are razed.
From Resources to Rubble: Evaluating Chicago’s Demolition Delay Ordinance in its Twentieth Year
As the 2003 Demolition Delay Ordinance turns twenty, Elizabeth Blasius writes in her monthly column about the successes and failures of this ordinance as well as the need to think about Chicago’s demolition problem holistically.
Op-ed: Thompson Center 2.0 is a preservation win for 2022
So, did we win? Yes — we won, whether the color remains or doesn’t, this is a win for climate change mitigation, a win for transit equity and a win for public space. Preservation as it functions in the real world must be a negotiation, not a battle over architectural details.
The Thompson Center, a blend of patriotism and Postmodernism, should be a Chicago landmark
The Thompson Center was designed to be a resource for the public to engage in both commerce and citizenship, and it met those goals well. In 2015, architecture critic Lee Bey called it “one of the finest — and most used — indoor public spaces in the state”...
Bishop Louis Henry Ford, Namesake Of Freeway And Eulogist At Emmett Till's Funeral, Was Chicago's 1st Historic Preservationist
Chicago’s oldest house, the 1836 Henry B. Clarke House, was bought by Bishop Ford in 1941 and cared for by Ford and the St. Paul Church of God in Christ until it became a city-run house museum in 1982...