Rebecca Graff, PhD

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Chair, Museum Studies

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Lake Forest College

Abstract:

Chicago’s cultural heritage scene is dominated by architectural preservation organizations that are supported by an "architourism" industry. Together they celebrate extant works by world-famous architects like Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright and, to a lesser degree, architectural fragments of their demolished buildings. Current archaeological research in Chicago undertaken in collaboration with architects and architectural historians has demonstrated how the social histories of these celebrated structures can be illuminated, if not outright discovered, through archaeology. At the same time, a public focus on individual architectural fragments to the neglect of other materials invites us to interrogate the way these objects undergird popular narratives. But these fragments are produced by what I term the “conspicuous disposal” of building materials--something that is only accelerated by processes of urban renewal. To understand the interaction of fragments and narratives through conspicuous disposal, this talk draws on archaeological work on the former site of the Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and sites designed by Sullivan, Wright, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.