Glenview, IL: Karen Hanmer, 2010. Hardcover. Number 21 of 30 copies. Signed and numbered by the book artist. This book was one of six winners of the “Building by the Book” competition sponsored by the Philadelphia Athenaeum and Philadelphia Center for the Book. This work by noted book artist Karen Hanmer is based on Samuel Sloan's 1852 collection of house plans and instructions to contractors titled The Model Architect. Hanmer juxtaposes Sloan's historical text and illustrations with modern text from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's online "Guide to Avoiding Foreclosure." The artist provides commentary in the colophon reflecting on the effects of the 2008 financial collapse in her own neighborhood. She states: "Samuel Sloan's The Model Architect was published at the mid point of a century marked by cycles of rampant speculation followed by financial collapse. The Panic of 1857 came on the heels of publication of Sloan's work, and put a halt to the most active portion of his career. This milieu mirrors what has happened in my own neighborhood of modest homes over the past fifteen years. The transformation began with some owners remodeling their kitchen, or adding a family room or bedroom. Then larger additions came. Ultimately, the houses commanded high prices to be sold as teardowns. Huge new houses were built in their places. The construction proceeded with increasingly grandiose features; portions of the facade faced with thin sheets of stone, wooden garage doors with cast iron-like fittings, decorative copper accents on the roofs, turrets, lions flanking the brick driveways. Now the house across the street, the house next door, and the house next door to that are all in foreclosure, and soon will be uninhabitable. The lawns grow without interruption. Without electricity and heat the basements fill with water, the pipes burst, the mechanicals are destroyed. Few modest, affordable homes remain in the neighborhood." Bound in marbled paper covered boards with black leather spine and red leather title label, titled and ruled in gilt. Bound using the modern drum leaf structure but replicating the look of a 19th century book. Housed in an archival paper case with the edition number and artist's contact information stamped on the front panel. Measures 14 x 11 x .5 inches. 48 pages. ARTB/121212. Fine. More