Architectural Features Featured In 3D Printed Book

We celebrate this week a project which brings together a few this blog’s favorite things: architectural 3D printing, art history and books. “Twenty Something Sullivan” is a retrospective of ArchitectLouis Sullivan’s early work by Tom Burtonwood and Tim Samuelson (both of Chicago) who took examples of Sullivan’s architectural ornamentation in the public domain and 3D printed them in a unique book (pictured below).

I find this project exciting for a couple different reasons: Firstly, Sullivan’s work is beautiful (as typified by the above image of his Flatiron Building ca. 1900). Sullivan’s work marks the establishment of modern building techniques like steel framing but still retains the luscious organic ornamentation of age borrowed from neo-classical and beaux-art trends. I accept not everyone in the 21^st century - with our clean lines and pure volumes – values rich ornamentation but hopefully that can be addressed somewhat by my second point: As stated previously on this blog I think the first wave of architecturally 3D printed products will be architectural features. This book is mostly there, falling short only in two areas; it’s a book of ornaments not used architecturally and it’s 3D printed in plastic – a fancy space age plastic to be sure – but with different materials now available for 3D printing, as referred to on this blog, other options might have been more desirous and interesting. I, for one, would love to see these reproductions completed in a cementitious material. 

                                              

Hesitating to give a full review to a book I have not read, I would love to see this book up close, especially given its ability to bring a tactile quality to presenting architectural ornamentation.