Rolf Achilles

Adjunct Associate Professor, Historic Preservation (1995). BA, 1969, and MA, 1973, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb; PhD (ABD), 1977, University of Chicago. Concurrent Positions: Art Historian, Writer, Photographer, Makedonia National Trust; Consultant, city of Prague, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, London, Sotheby's, Cristie's, Glessner House, Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Hegeler Carus Mansion. Exhibition/Publication Coordinator: IIT-Mies Centennial; Newberry Library; U.S. Department of the Interior. Consulting Editor: Dictionary of American History. Curator: Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, Chicago. Books: Blistex: The First 50 Years; The Story of the Chicago Cultural Center; Made in Illinois. Publications: Spritzdekor, 2014; Eva Zeisel, Life Design, and Beauty, 2013; American Movie Palaces, 2013; Degenerate Ceramics Revisited, 2013; Eva Zeisel designs for Carstens Hirschau, 2013; Hands Together: An Icon Incarnate, 2013; The Chicago School of Architecture: Building the Modern City, 2013; DePaul's Music School, 2013; Grete Marks: When Modern was Degenerate, 2012; Hand Made by Machine, 2011; The Art of Newel, 2011. Awards: Freedom of the City of London, England; Honorary Freeman, Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass, London, England; Honorary Ambassador to Hamburg; Art Historian and Preservationist at large, Hamburg, Prague, Vienna. 

I've devoted my life to documenting, writing, talking, teaching, and preserving interiors and their decorative arts in the US and abroad. I'm particularly concerned with those areas of culture that were mass-produced and common during the later 19th and much of the 20th century.