Chicago Imagebase
Begun in Spring 1997
The Chicago Imagebase is a demonstration website being developed to
document comprehensive geographic, visual, statistical, and textual information
on the Chicago metropolitan area. The Imagebase allows for viewing and
analyzing information at all different spatial levels ranging from a specific
building to a community, city, and region. This information allows the
public to access on-line, previously difficult-to-come-by documents as
well as design and planning proposals as they materialize. In addition,
documents and images are updated by the Imagebase staff to keep information
current. The public may also link their own information on the built environment
to this interactive website.
Most recently, the Chicago Imagebase project has focused on adding additional
documents and information as well as methods to improve the public’s
access to the visual, text, and statistical materials. Information on
specific Chicago locales and neighborhoods including the downtown Loop,
North Lawndale, the Near West Side, Pilsen, Chinatown, Bridgeport, and
Morgan Park have been added. The Imagebase faculty and staff also have
designed a new graphic interface which allows users to search for a wide
range of information using various scale maps. For instance, for North
Lawndale, a user may click on a neighborhood map to retrieve specific
information such as parcel and property information and land use data.
In addition a text-based indexing system is being refined to ease the
website user’s search.
In the immediate future, the Chicago Imagebase project will continue
to expand its coverage of the Chicago region’s built environment.
For instance, a series of contributed photographs of community murals
located throughout the city will be catalogued to be accessed by a text
and map based search.
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Map of project location:
Chicago metropolitan area
Gateway to the Chicago
Imagebase photo
by Bob Thall from The Perfect City
Art Institute, Chicago's downtown circa 1893,
Rand McNally's Bird's-Eye Views & Guide to Chicago
Fire insurance map of downtown Chicago,
Robinson Atlases of Downtown Chicago, ca. 1886
Chicago Theater, Bob Thall, The Perfect City
The Columbian Exposition, Administration Building
seen from the roof, 1893, Charles Dudley Arnold photograph
Meyer Building exterior, medallion corner detail
Aerial view of Chicago Loop (downtown), Alex MacLean
photograph
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Web Site
City Design Center Affiliated Faculty and Staff
Current
Khier Al-Kodmany, Assistant Professor, Urban Planning and Policy Program
Jim Bash, Associate Director, CAGIS Project, Department of Geography
Robert Bruegmann, Professor, Department of Art History
Jane Darcovich, Director, Slide Library, College of Architecture and
the Arts
Lin Dou, Resident Librarian, UIC Library
Peter Hales, Professor, Department of Art History
John Shuler, Documents Librarian, UIC Library
David Sokol, Professor, Department of Art History
Alex Stern, Associate Director, Adjunct Associate Professor School of
Architecture, Technology Coordinator College of Architecture and the Arts
Former
Diane Farley, former Program Coordinator, City Design Center
George Hemmens, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy Program, and former
Co-Director, City Design Center
Collaborating Organization
Center for Neighborhood Technology
Funding
UI Advanced Learning Technologies in Higher Education (ALTHE)
UIC College of Architecture and the Arts
UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs
UIC Office of the Provost
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