Brunswick Balke Collender Company Factory Building, Chicago, Illinois, Elevation and Section Possibly 1891 - 1989

Adler and Sullivan's "Brunswick Balke Collender Company Factory Building," is an architectural drawing, likely made with graphite and ink. What's so great about drawings, even architectural ones, is that they reveal the process. The ghost of the hand is right there on the page. Look at the way the lines are so precise, yet there is a lightness of touch in the variations of the line weight. It gives the building form, but it also feels like it could be taken apart and put back together again in a different way. It's like the architects are thinking through the building, not just showing us what it will be. There’s something about the texture of the paper that makes you want to touch it. This reminds me a bit of Piranesi, another architectural fantasist. I guess art is just one big conversation across time, and it's up to us to listen in.