John Vinci: Life and Landmarks Hardcover – October 15, 2017

I received my copy of Vinci just before Christmas and put it aside because I wanted to be able to commit some time to reading it. But, yesterday I gave it a quick breeze through. Now I want to read it in more detail. My initial reaction... Beautiful photography! The book is really well designed, production and printing are spot on. I loved the story about the public battle between Vinci and Koolhaus. I love that the authors were able to capture and weave in some great little human stories about not just Vinci’s career, but also his associates, critics, and contemporaries who were so committed to preservation that they put everything into their work—one even died inside one of his projects. Can’t wait to read in more detail. This is an excellent book. A master piece in historical and contemporary photography the original buildings, restorations, the life of Vinci elegantly paired with what appears to be an extremely well researched yet approachable text. These guys clearly love their subject and their craft.

Finally, John Vinci, a hero in contemporary Chicago architecture and preservation, has been honored with a book that lives up to his legacy. So many Chicago architecture fans have been waiting for a volume like this for years. The book has four parts: Vinci's life, his own design work, his preservation projects, and a catalogue raisonne. The book designers artfully commingled a lavish number of new and vintage photographs with intelligent, crisp, and authoritative writing.Architecture buffs like me will especially appreciate the inclusion of the story of Vinci's close collaboration with photographer Richard Nickel, who lost his life while photographing the disassembly of the Old Chicago Stock Exchange building. Saving the stock exchange's trading room and rebuilding it within the Art Institute of Chicago was one of Vinci's most famous achievements, and its success was all the more poignant because of the death of his close friend.Zbaren and Sharoff have worked together on a several books, their book about Detroit being another classic of the same quality. The publishers (Northwestern University Press) seem to not have scrimped on quality papers and inks. The book's a real beauty.