Past Projects

The Imagebase began as a tool for classroom teaching, with UIC's Art History 122, Chicago Architecture, as its test case. The course afforded the project group the opportunity to begin to test the best ways to seek out, digitize, archive, and make available a wealth of visual and written materials on Chicago's built environment. Our next project involved making the imagebase directly available to Internet users. This early version rapidly became a chaotic jumble and so we moved as quickly as possible to our new site design.

Our first major acquisition project involved digitally photographing the rare and fragile sets of Chicago fire insurance maps that are held by the UIC Library's Maps division. We then set about acquiring a large archive of contemporary views of Chicago by noted American photographers Bob Thall and Alex MacLean.

The next stage involved significant increases in archival materials, shifts in focus toward specific neighborhoods and suburban sites, and changes in the ways material might be made available, especially to a wide range of constituencies, from international scholars to elementary school children. A collaboration with the Chicago Teacher's Center and collaborations with other organizations as well as with projects and departments within UIC have resulted in the current work we are doing.