Thu 8/28 @ 7-8:30PM
I’m from Chicago, a city that has a strong architectural identity and history, created by such giants as Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The Cleveland architectural landscape may not be that internationally noted, but there was an architecture firm that put its stamp on the city still seen around us every day. But how many people can name the architects that created Severance Music Center, the downtown branch of the Cleveland Public Library, Public Auditorium, the Cleveland Federal Reserve Building, and the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge with its Guardians of Traffic statues?
That would be Walker & Weeks, led by Frank Walker and Harry Weeks, which created numerous buildings in the region between the 1910s and 1950s, many of which, including those listed above, are still standing.
Much of their work was celebrated in the summer 1930 issues of Architectural Review of the Mississippi Basin, published in Columbus. A copy of the now-rare publication was discovered last year by Ellen Strong, founder of Strong Book Bindery on Larchmere Road, which restores old books and documents. She found it, of all places, in the waiting room of the auto repair shop where she takes her car. And it was in sorry shape.
“I’m looking through it and there’s all these places I know,” she says. “I noticed every single page had a tear. I took it to Tom and said this needs to be repaired. You need to save this; it’s an important piece of Cleveland history.”
“Tom,” her mechanic, is Tom Weeks, who happens to be Harry Weeks’ grandson. He agreed to entrust the magazine to Strong to do the work in exchange for work on her car. She and artist Kelly Pontoni got to work.
“Every page was missing the right lower corner; they were all torn,” says Pontoni. “We had to make so they the paper to repair the pages as close in color to the original as possible.” That was 110 pages amount to hundreds of hours of work, which consumed the two since early this year. Pontoni photographed and documented their work as they went along. They also created a box for it. It will be returned to Tom Weeks, and both Strong and Pontoni hope that he will make plans to preserve and archive this piece of history.
Those who’d like to hear more about how the work was done can attend a forum at Loganberry Books on Larchmere, hosted by the Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society, where Strong and Pontoni will share how they approached restoring this significant piece of Northeast Ohio history. It’s free and open to all, and you can also watch on Zoom. Go here for more information.
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One Response to “Local Bindery Restores an Important Piece of NE Ohio Architectural History”
Bobbi Reichtell
Will they publish reprints of this restored document ? I’d be interested in purchasing a copy and I believe others would too.