A. Finkl & Sons: Forging Forward
A. Finkl & Sons: Forging Forward Heavy industry, once a staple of Chicago’s economy and identity, is rapidly disappearing in the age of globalization. The world’s leading supplier of forged and cast steel, A Finkl & Sons is one of the few heavy industry companies still functioning along the Elston street industrial corridor. However, due to aging equipment, the northside Finkl campus will be closing its doors and moving to a new high tech campus on Chicago’s southside, leaving the future of its Elston street campus unclear.
Most of the action happens behind closed steel doors, however the Finkl campus is littered with items used in the forging process.
Large cranes guided by humans lift the pieces of steel which get heated and shaved down to size, leaving mounds of small steel by-product that litter the campus. These steel shavings get melted down with larger pieces of steel to be reused.
While humans are still integral to the forging process, their presense on the campus is diminished by the massive scale of the machines they control.
Specializing in the forging and casting of steel, the Finkl campus is a world controlled by machines where signs of humans are tiny in comparison.
Much of the equipment on the current campus has become out of date and will be replaced or updated as the plant moves to the new southside campus.
As the Finkl plant begins its move to the southside, the spaces it leaves behind provide ghostly reminders of the activity that used to occur here.