Olivia
A cascade of changes in the Western world during the 19th century inspired Americans’ gravitation towards industrialization and urbanization. And as people congregated in cities, hectic conditions and unbearable congestion demanded a new urban landscape. Relief from lamentable surroundings came as technology enabled the advent of steel-framed construction, a vital step toward the birth of the skyscraper. The new structural style marked leap forward in architecture as the metal framework promised taller, more spacious, nearly fireproof constructions with larger windows and thus more natural light (Lowe). This form became the new vogue for commercial office buildings in America’s cities. Instrumental in the increasingly soaring skylines was the Chicago School, a group of architects and engineers who gave birth to what’s come to be thought of as modern architecture (Encyclopædia Britannica).
Louis Sullivan, a leader in the Chicago School, epitomized this architectural trajectory toward functional metropolitan design. His famed aphorism, “form should follow function,” molded with the necessities of the time (The Public Broadcasting Service). Sullivan attended the United States’ first architectural program of study, offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the age of sixteen (Prairie Styles). After graduating, Sullivan traveled to Chicago where he first encountered the aesthetics of metal-framed buildings when working in William Le Baron Jenney, the “father of the skyscraper” (Prairie Styles). Realizing his dream of studying in Europe, Sullivan then pursued deeper training at Paris’s influential Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1874 (The Public Broadcasting Service). After returning to America, Sullivan advanced rapidly in his field and, at the youthful age of twenty-four, had become a full partner at the firm of Adler and Sullivan, Architects (Encyclopædia Britannica). This collaboration fused Dankmar Adler’s engineering prowess with Sullivan’s eye for design in a relationship that endured for fourteen years and spawned over a hundred designs (Encyclopædia Britannica).
Adler’s mastery of acoustics won the firm the project of Chicago’s Auditorium Building in 1886 (Fazio). The structure was a complex amalgamation of a hotel, offices, and an auditorium, unified under a single roof, a technological feat accomplished by Dankmar Adler (Fazio). Sullivan, assuming the aesthetic responsibilities of the project, worked to unify the disparate components (Fazio). The ten-story building’s granite and limestone exterior is understated, with elongated arcades to emphasize its verticality (Encyclopædia Britannica). In the interior, Sullivan turned to another modern invention, electrical lighting (Encyclopædia Britannica). The adornment of the hall, with gilded plasterwork and stenciled patterns, creates an environment suitable for absorbing elaborate theater like opera (Encyclopædia Britannica). The revolutionary design of the building suited its purposes, bringing distinction to the Adler and Sullivan firm and guaranteed future urban projects.
Sullivan continued with vertical emphasis in his next significant endeavor with Adler, the Wainwright Building, built in 1890. Constructed in St. Louis, this modern office building used a steel frame to achieve a soaring, by the time’s standards, ten levels (Miller). Creating the illusion of greater height, Sullivan designed uninterrupted vertical piers to draw the eye upward rather than across (Miller). Furthermore, the windows are oriented vertically, furthering this sightline. And Sullivan crowned his construction with an elaborate cornice that exemplifies his deftness with ornamentation. The annular, spiraling patterns of the frieze recall organic forms, a harsh deviation from common, Classical motifs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum). Similar to his other attempts at embellishment, the molding features geometrical patterns, softened by a flowering, gentle style influenced by nature (Encyclopædia Britannica). Sullivan challenges traditional architectural customs—horizontal lines and Classical inspiration—by bringing the Chicago School’s principles to life in the Wainwright Building.
Breaking from his partnership with Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan launched his independent practice in 1895 (Encyclopædia Britannica). Although Sullivan’s temperament was not suited to solitary work, and his venture, assuming only 20 projects during his final 30 years of his life, was discredited as a failure, in 1899 the architect began the Carson Pirie Scott Department Store commission (Encyclopædia Britannica). Departing from his standard, vertically emphasized form, Sullivan draws long horizontal lines with his building. The windows, composed in long bays that seemingly expand the structure’s width, are known as rectangular “Chicago windows” (Encyclopædia Britannica). This enforces a steady, ordered tenor of the building when viewed from afar (Fazio). Yet, when observed at a closer distance, the department store is far more elaborate (Fazio). Sullivan dedicates great attention to the main entrance. The doorway is located on a rounded corner of the edifice that’s almost cylindrical shape deviates from the horizontal norm, using vertical piers and window shape to create a perpendicular effect. At the base of this feigned tower, Sullivan designs intricate, wrought bronze gilding (Miller). Simulating the appearance and movement of foliage, the doorway beckons to prospective shoppers (Miller). The design is extended beyond the entrance, embellishing the first and second floor exteriors. Framing the large display windows with this elaborate ornamentation, Sullivan revolutionized the shopper’s experience; now a store could enticingly exhibit its merchandise to potential consumers outside the building (Miller). The deceptively natural appearance of the Carson Pirie Scott Store from afar slowly dissolves into an alluring commercial nucleus as one approaches, a concept that revolutionized the design of department stores.
Louis Sullivan’s greatest achievement was his anticipation of the demands of an urban society. Demonstrating the vital link between form and function, Sullivan radically proposed that successful architecture should reflect the purpose of the building (Encyclopædia Britannica). As the first to accentuate the verticality of the new skyscraper, he initiated an architectural style that continues today. Yet Sullivan was greatly disheartened by the feeble response of his contemporaries. At the World’s Columbian Exposition, Adler and Sullivan’s Transportation Building pushed architectural boundaries with vibrant colors and concentrically arched Golden Door (Miller). Although his Transportation Building achieved great fame, securing immense praise in Europe especially, Sullivan was crushed by his fellow American’s preoccupation with The White City, a court of grand neoclassical constructions (The Public Broadcasting Service). It is estimated that this infatuation with the classical forms postponed the spread of Sullivan and the Chicago School’s modern architecture for fifty years (The Public Broadcasting Service). Despite this setback, Sullivan passed away leaving the fate of modern architecture in the hands of a worthy successor, his apprentice Frank Lloyd Wright (The Public Broadcasting Service). And in the ensuing decades, Sullivan’s credo, “form follows function,” would be adopted by the Prairie School of architecture (Prairie Styles).
Works Cited
Fazio, Michael, Marian Moffett and Lawrence Wodehouse. A World History of Architecture. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2008. 442—448.
"Louis Sullivan." 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/572949/Louis-Sullivan/6981/Assessment>.
“Louis Sullivan.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum. 4 March 2013.
< http://web.mit.edu/museum/chicago/sullivan.html>.
“Louis Sullivan Commissions.” 2011. Prairie Styles. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.prairiestyles.com/lsullivan.htm>.
Lowe, David Gerrard. “Architecture: The First Chicago School.” 2005. Encyclopedia of Chicago. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/62.html>.
Miller, Angela, et al. American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity. London: Prentice Hall, 2008. 340—344.
“People & Events: Louis Sullivan (1856-1924).” 2003. The Public Broadcasting Service. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/p_sullivan.html>.
Images Cited
“Category:Wainwright Building.” 2012. Wikimedia. 4 March 2013.
< http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wainwright_Building>.
Howe, Jeffery. “World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago.” 1998. A Digital Archive of American Architecture. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/1893fair.html>.
"Louis Sullivan." 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/572949/Louis-Sullivan/6981/Assessment>.
“Louis Sullivan.” 11 January 2011. Proto-Architecture. 4 March 2013.
<http://proto-architecture.com/blog/?p=1245.>
A cascade of changes in the Western world during the 19th century inspired Americans’ gravitation towards industrialization and urbanization. And as people congregated in cities, hectic conditions and unbearable congestion demanded a new urban landscape. Relief from lamentable surroundings came as technology enabled the advent of steel-framed construction, a vital step toward the birth of the skyscraper. The new structural style marked leap forward in architecture as the metal framework promised taller, more spacious, nearly fireproof constructions with larger windows and thus more natural light (Lowe). This form became the new vogue for commercial office buildings in America’s cities. Instrumental in the increasingly soaring skylines was the Chicago School, a group of architects and engineers who gave birth to what’s come to be thought of as modern architecture (Encyclopædia Britannica).
Louis Sullivan, a leader in the Chicago School, epitomized this architectural trajectory toward functional metropolitan design. His famed aphorism, “form should follow function,” molded with the necessities of the time (The Public Broadcasting Service). Sullivan attended the United States’ first architectural program of study, offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the age of sixteen (Prairie Styles). After graduating, Sullivan traveled to Chicago where he first encountered the aesthetics of metal-framed buildings when working in William Le Baron Jenney, the “father of the skyscraper” (Prairie Styles). Realizing his dream of studying in Europe, Sullivan then pursued deeper training at Paris’s influential Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1874 (The Public Broadcasting Service). After returning to America, Sullivan advanced rapidly in his field and, at the youthful age of twenty-four, had become a full partner at the firm of Adler and Sullivan, Architects (Encyclopædia Britannica). This collaboration fused Dankmar Adler’s engineering prowess with Sullivan’s eye for design in a relationship that endured for fourteen years and spawned over a hundred designs (Encyclopædia Britannica).
Adler’s mastery of acoustics won the firm the project of Chicago’s Auditorium Building in 1886 (Fazio). The structure was a complex amalgamation of a hotel, offices, and an auditorium, unified under a single roof, a technological feat accomplished by Dankmar Adler (Fazio). Sullivan, assuming the aesthetic responsibilities of the project, worked to unify the disparate components (Fazio). The ten-story building’s granite and limestone exterior is understated, with elongated arcades to emphasize its verticality (Encyclopædia Britannica). In the interior, Sullivan turned to another modern invention, electrical lighting (Encyclopædia Britannica). The adornment of the hall, with gilded plasterwork and stenciled patterns, creates an environment suitable for absorbing elaborate theater like opera (Encyclopædia Britannica). The revolutionary design of the building suited its purposes, bringing distinction to the Adler and Sullivan firm and guaranteed future urban projects.
Sullivan continued with vertical emphasis in his next significant endeavor with Adler, the Wainwright Building, built in 1890. Constructed in St. Louis, this modern office building used a steel frame to achieve a soaring, by the time’s standards, ten levels (Miller). Creating the illusion of greater height, Sullivan designed uninterrupted vertical piers to draw the eye upward rather than across (Miller). Furthermore, the windows are oriented vertically, furthering this sightline. And Sullivan crowned his construction with an elaborate cornice that exemplifies his deftness with ornamentation. The annular, spiraling patterns of the frieze recall organic forms, a harsh deviation from common, Classical motifs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum). Similar to his other attempts at embellishment, the molding features geometrical patterns, softened by a flowering, gentle style influenced by nature (Encyclopædia Britannica). Sullivan challenges traditional architectural customs—horizontal lines and Classical inspiration—by bringing the Chicago School’s principles to life in the Wainwright Building.
Breaking from his partnership with Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan launched his independent practice in 1895 (Encyclopædia Britannica). Although Sullivan’s temperament was not suited to solitary work, and his venture, assuming only 20 projects during his final 30 years of his life, was discredited as a failure, in 1899 the architect began the Carson Pirie Scott Department Store commission (Encyclopædia Britannica). Departing from his standard, vertically emphasized form, Sullivan draws long horizontal lines with his building. The windows, composed in long bays that seemingly expand the structure’s width, are known as rectangular “Chicago windows” (Encyclopædia Britannica). This enforces a steady, ordered tenor of the building when viewed from afar (Fazio). Yet, when observed at a closer distance, the department store is far more elaborate (Fazio). Sullivan dedicates great attention to the main entrance. The doorway is located on a rounded corner of the edifice that’s almost cylindrical shape deviates from the horizontal norm, using vertical piers and window shape to create a perpendicular effect. At the base of this feigned tower, Sullivan designs intricate, wrought bronze gilding (Miller). Simulating the appearance and movement of foliage, the doorway beckons to prospective shoppers (Miller). The design is extended beyond the entrance, embellishing the first and second floor exteriors. Framing the large display windows with this elaborate ornamentation, Sullivan revolutionized the shopper’s experience; now a store could enticingly exhibit its merchandise to potential consumers outside the building (Miller). The deceptively natural appearance of the Carson Pirie Scott Store from afar slowly dissolves into an alluring commercial nucleus as one approaches, a concept that revolutionized the design of department stores.
Louis Sullivan’s greatest achievement was his anticipation of the demands of an urban society. Demonstrating the vital link between form and function, Sullivan radically proposed that successful architecture should reflect the purpose of the building (Encyclopædia Britannica). As the first to accentuate the verticality of the new skyscraper, he initiated an architectural style that continues today. Yet Sullivan was greatly disheartened by the feeble response of his contemporaries. At the World’s Columbian Exposition, Adler and Sullivan’s Transportation Building pushed architectural boundaries with vibrant colors and concentrically arched Golden Door (Miller). Although his Transportation Building achieved great fame, securing immense praise in Europe especially, Sullivan was crushed by his fellow American’s preoccupation with The White City, a court of grand neoclassical constructions (The Public Broadcasting Service). It is estimated that this infatuation with the classical forms postponed the spread of Sullivan and the Chicago School’s modern architecture for fifty years (The Public Broadcasting Service). Despite this setback, Sullivan passed away leaving the fate of modern architecture in the hands of a worthy successor, his apprentice Frank Lloyd Wright (The Public Broadcasting Service). And in the ensuing decades, Sullivan’s credo, “form follows function,” would be adopted by the Prairie School of architecture (Prairie Styles).
Works Cited
Fazio, Michael, Marian Moffett and Lawrence Wodehouse. A World History of Architecture. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2008. 442—448.
"Louis Sullivan." 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/572949/Louis-Sullivan/6981/Assessment>.
“Louis Sullivan.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum. 4 March 2013.
< http://web.mit.edu/museum/chicago/sullivan.html>.
“Louis Sullivan Commissions.” 2011. Prairie Styles. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.prairiestyles.com/lsullivan.htm>.
Lowe, David Gerrard. “Architecture: The First Chicago School.” 2005. Encyclopedia of Chicago. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/62.html>.
Miller, Angela, et al. American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural Identity. London: Prentice Hall, 2008. 340—344.
“People & Events: Louis Sullivan (1856-1924).” 2003. The Public Broadcasting Service. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/p_sullivan.html>.
Images Cited
“Category:Wainwright Building.” 2012. Wikimedia. 4 March 2013.
< http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wainwright_Building>.
Howe, Jeffery. “World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago.” 1998. A Digital Archive of American Architecture. 4 March 2013.
< http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/1893fair.html>.
"Louis Sullivan." 2013. Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 March 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/572949/Louis-Sullivan/6981/Assessment>.
“Louis Sullivan.” 11 January 2011. Proto-Architecture. 4 March 2013.
<http://proto-architecture.com/blog/?p=1245.>