Digital image gallery with millions of images of works of art from museums, galleries, and private collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago. Artstor also includes AIC Collections, images curated by the Flaxman Library specifically for use in teaching and research at SAIC. NOTE: you must register and login in the upper right corner of Artstor to download images.
Image-based similarity searches images identified from 2,311,060 digitized works of the Bavarian State Library, published between the 9th and the 20th century.
Bibliothèque nationale de France + a few related collections (e.g.; INHA (the national library for the history of art) includes some full text + images.
Provides digitized historic fire insurance maps for most cities and towns in Illinois. The large scale plans chart the growth and development of these communities. 1867-1970.
40,000+ images in one of the world's largest archives specializing in historic and current images of the Middle East and the Islamic world. Free: registration required.
Drawings of furniture, interiors, jewelry, wallpaper, and more from the Cooper Hewitt, Freer Gallery, Hirshhorn, and other Smithsonian Museum collections.
Browse the finding aids to locate drawings at Ryerson that are not digitized.
choose "Burnham Library-University of Illinois Project to Microfilm..." from the menu, and then select the document with "Appendix" at the top of the page in order to view a list of architects and buildings included in this microfilm project of over 11,000 drawings
browse the finding aid list to find other architects and collections in addition to the microfilm project
Check architectural magazines. Search the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and the Burnham Index (in Ryerson, call no. Z5944.U5 B87) to identify citations. Both libraries have many of these magazines. Inland Architect is particularly good for early Chicago building plans.
Check individual archival collections at Ryerson. Browse digitized items by collection here
The museum’s Architecture and Design Department collection of drawings is inventoried and accessible by librarians at Ryerson & Burnham libraries; checkcontact information & hours.
Search either Flaxman or Ryerson's catalog for books on specific architects or buildings; sometimes plans and drawings are included. Particularly useful are the Historic American Buildings Survey books, also digitized by the Library of Congress here.
Additionally, the Chicago History Museum has plans and drawings for Chicago-area buildings.