Guardians of Michigan profiles the extraordinary architectural sculpture found in both the pleasant peninsulas of the Great Lakes State. Author Jeff Morrison spent years exploring Michigan’s largest cities and smallest towns, using telephoto photography to capture the sculptural details hidden from the naked eye, and researching the beautiful historic architecture he encountered. Organized alphabetically by city, each section documents the history and design of an individual building, accompanied by beautiful photos of the building and its unique ornamentation. 
​
The buildings profiled in Guardians of Michigan range from county courthouses, churches, and government buildings constructed during the 1800s, to skyscrapers with intricate sculptural decoration too far above street level for passersby to see. As a result, the book highlights examples of Gothic, Romanesque Revival, Beaux Arts, as well as Art Deco and Art Moderne. Guardians of Michigan is a loving tribute to the architecture of the state, preserving forgotten stories and beautiful buildings for all readers to enjoy.

Decorated with the richest, most beautiful mosaics in the world, the Venetian church of San Marco is quite literally a treasure house of medieval art. The domes and walls of the church, encrusted with stone, glass, and gold, have been recognized, over the centuries, as a glorious historical and artistic record. Peopled with hundreds and figures—Adam and Eve, Noah and his progeny, Isaiah, Christ, Mark, of course, and other holy men and women of Venice—these mosaics create a cosmic panorama. The Mosaic Decoration of San Marco, Venice brings these unrivaled mosaics into breathtaking focus, combining a descriptive history of their creation and repair over the ages with close-up photographs revealing their iconographic detail.

Silver Screens traces the rich history of Milwaukee's movie theaters, from 1890s nickelodeons to the grand palaces of the Roaring Twenties to the shopping mall outlets of today. And the story doesn't end there: in the past two decades, the revival of interest in preservation and restoration of theaters has confirmed that there's still life in these beloved old structures. With the publication of Silver Screens, authors Larry Widen and Judi Anderson help ensure that our old theaters, those being restored and those long since vanished, will remain forever embedded in our collective memory.

In this revised edition of their book Milwaukee Movie Palaces, the authors present new findings on film innovations, drive-in theaters, projection booths, movie promotions, noted theater personalities, recent restoration efforts, and much more. Illuminated with more than a hundred photographs, including many never before published, Silver Screens is a stunning tribute to the legacy of the movie theater.

Sullivanesque offers a visual and historical tour of a unique but often overlooked facet of modern American architecture derived from Louis Sullivan.Highly regarded in architecture for inspiring the Chicago School and the Prairie School, Sullivan was an unwilling instigator of the method of facade composition--later influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, William Gray Purcell, and George G. Elmslie--that came to be known as Sullivanesque. Decorative enhancements with botanical and animal themes, Sullivan's distinctive ornamentation mitigated the hard geometries of the large buildings he designed, coinciding with his "form follows function" aesthetic.Sullivan's designs offered solutions to problems presented by new types and scales of buildings. Widely popular, they were also widely copied, and the style proliferated due to a number of Chicago-based interests, including the Radford Architectural Company and several decorative plaster and terra-cotta companies. Stock replicas of Sullivan's designs manufactured by the Midland Terra Cotta Company and others gave distinction and focus to utilitarian buildings in Chicago's commercial strips and other confined areas, such as the downtown districts of smaller towns. Mass-produced Sullivanesque terra cotta endured as a result of its combined economic and aesthetic appeal, blending the sophistication of high architectural art with the pragmatic functionality of building design.Masterfully framed by the author's photographs of Sullivanesque buildings in Chicago and throughout the Midwest, Ronald E. Schmitt's in-depth exploration of the Sullivanesque tells the story of its evolution from Sullivan's intellectual and aesthetic foundations to its place as a form of commercial vernacular. The book also includes an inventory of Sullivanesque buildings.Honorable Mention recipient of the 2002 PSP Awards for Excellence in Professional/Scholarly Publishing