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New Acquisitions: 2023
July 28, 2025
As part of its mission to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build, the National Building Museum actively collects objects, photographs, and paper materials that document the building process. This wide-ranging scope includes pieces of buildings, architectural toys, construction tools, technical and architectural drawings, building photographs and negatives, and souvenir buildings, among many others. In 2023, the Museum accepted into its permanent collection the following pieces:
Paper models are a unique architectural representation of places, both real and imagined. Ron Kemnitzer donated 134 of these paper models to the Museum’s collection, adding to previous collections donated by his brother David Kemnitzer and commercial paper model designer Alan Rose.
Donor: Ron Kemnitzer
Image: Example of a paper model, 2023.2.8001 and 2023.2.8002.
Richard Sprow donated 148 ceramic, plastic, and metal souvenir buildings to the permanent collection. These were collected by Sprow personally since 1970 and can be explored on our online collections database.
Donor: Richard Sprow
Image: Roman Columns Book End, 2023.3.15.
Purchased from a salvage yard in Buffalo, New York, this piece has been identified as a molded decorative element designed by the Northwestern Terra Cotta Company. Given to the Museum by Lucille Dick in 2023, this object dovetails nicely with the Museum’s 50,000+ drawing Northwestern Terra Cotta Collection.
Donor: Lucille Dick
Image: Mold of Woman’s Head, 2023.4.1.
Designed by Adler & Sullivan, the Garrick Theater in Chicago was an iconic example of Sullivan’s highly decorative architectural style. The building was demolished in 1961, and several pieces of the unique ornamentation were salvaged at that time. Clasby gave one such ornamental plaster section, beautifully preserved, to the Museum’s collection in 2023.
Donor: Thomas Clasby
Image: Plaster Fragment, 2023.5.1.
In 1991, the Museum was one of several venues for an exhibit sponsored by the Historic Preservation Education Foundation (HPEF) called Windows Through Time. Originally intended to accompany a National Park Service (NPS)-sponsored event on historic wood window rehabilitation, the show travelled to several venues into the late 1990s. The exhibition included at least 14 historic window assemblies, supporting scaffolding, lights, and interpretive panels. NPS was awarded the 1992 Federal Design Achievement Award for the installation of this exhibition at the Museum.
In 2023, HPEF reached out to the Museum to find a permanent home for some of these windows. The Museum accepted ten windows with excellent provenance that represent a wide range of construction styles and intentions. Some of these windows can be seen on display in Visible Vault.
Donor: Historic Preservation Education Fund
Image: Historic windows, 2023.6.7 and 2023.6.10.
The Museum is extremely grateful to these generous donors for working with us to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build. To learn more about the Museum’s permanent collection, search our online database here!
