Louis Henry Sullivan

About Sullivan

Father of the modern skyscraper

Mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Influential architect of the Chicago
School of Architects
September 3, 1856 to April 14, 1924.
Instead of imitating historic styles, he
created original forms and details
Sullivans style
Sullivan's designs often used masonry walls with
terra cotta designs, intertwining vines and
leaves combined with crisp geometric shapes.

Louis Sullivan believed that the exterior of a

building should reflect its interior structure and
functions.

Ornament, where it was used, must be derived

from nature, instead of classical architectureof
the past.
 Early life
Parents immigrated to USA from Europe.
Sullivan was born and educated in USA.
He obtained bachelorhood in Architecture from the
Massachusetts Institute Technology.
He worked for William le Baron Jenny in Chicago and
also shifted to Paris with him to study at Ecole des
Baux Paris.
Sullivan later returned to USA and joined Dankmar
Adler. Ho became a partner in that firm and the firm
became Adler and Sullivan.
His becoming partner marked his most productive
years.
 Adler and Sullivan
Unlike the buildings of their contemporaries,
who largely depended on common architectural
devices and conventional decoration, Adler and
Sullivan attempted to distinguish their buildings
with the bold use of ornament.
Sullivan's distinct stylistic interpretations of
ornament also appeared in the firm's residential
interiors. Newels, railings, wood trim, fireplace
mantels, ceiling escutcheons, and in some
cases art-glass fenestration were designed by
Sullivan to complete the decorative scheme.
Auditorium
Building

Chicago, USA
The Auditorium Building
The Auditorium Building
Covering nearly half a city block with
combined facilities for a large opera house, a
hotel, stores, and offices, the Auditorium
Building was one of the most important design
projects of 19th-century Chicago. The publicity
generated by this ambitious commission
elevated the firm to national prominence. The
photo above was taken during the restoration
of the theater, which occurred in 1966-1967.
Still standing
Original Requirement
Ferdinand Peck, a Chicago businessman,
incorporated the Chicago Auditorium
Association in December 1886 to develop
what he wanted to be the world's largest,
grandest, most expensivetheaterthat would
rival such institutions as theMetropolitan
Opera HouseinNew York City.
He was said to have wanted to make high
culture accessible to the working classes of
Chicago.
The design
The Auditorium was built for asyndicateofbusinessmento house
a large civic opera house; to provide an economic base it was
decided to wrap the auditorium with a hotel and office block.
Hence Adler & Sullivan had to plan a complex multiple-use
building. Fronting onMichigan Avenue, overlooking thelake, was
the hotel (now Roosevelt University) while the offices were placed
to the west on Wabash Avenue.
The entrance to the auditorium is on the south side beneath the
tall blocky eighteen-story tower.
The rest of the building is a uniform ten stories, organized in the
same way as Richardson'sMarshall FieldWholesaleStore.
The interior embellishment, however, is wholly Sullivan's, and
some of the details, because of their
continuouscurvilinearfoliatemotifs, are among the nearest
equivalents to EuropeanArt Nouveauarchitecture.
Features
The Auditorium is a heavy, impressive structure externally,
and was more striking in its day when buildings of its scale
were less common. When completed, it was the tallest
building in the city and largest building in theUnited States.
In the centre of the building was a 4,300 seatauditorium,
originally intended primarily for production ofGrand Opera.
Housed in the building around the central space were an
1890 addition of 136officesand a 400-roomhotel,whose
purpose was to generate much of the revenue to support
the opera. While the Auditorium Building was not intended
as a commercial building, Peck wanted it to be self-
sufficient. Revenue from the offices and hotel was meant to
allow ticket prices to remain reasonable.
One of the most innovative features of the building was its
massive raftfoundation, designed by Adler in conjunction with
engineer Paul Mueller. The soil beneath the Auditorium consists
of soft blueclayto a depth of over 100 feet, which made
conventional foundations impossible. Adler and Mueller
designed a floating mat of crisscrossedrailroad ties, topped with
a double layer ofsteelrails embedded inconcrete, the whole
assemblage coated withpitch.
Site Plan
Elevation
Section
Wainwright Building
The St. Louis brewer Ellis Wainwright and his
mother, Catherine, purchased land at 7th and
Chestnut Streets in St. Louis in May 1890,
intending to erect a speculative office building
of granite, iron, and steel.
This was Adler & Sullivan's first opportunity to
design a steel-frame building. The verticality
and the expression of the facade marked a
new clarity in the firm's designs for tall
buildings.
Still standing
A carved-stone detail near the
entry of the Wainwright
Building
 Chicago Stock exchange
In 1892, Ferdinand Peck, Adler & Sullivan's client for a number of
projects, negotiated an agreement with the Chicago Stock Exchange,
which was eager to find new quarters. Permits for construction were
issued in February 1892 and January 1893, and the building opened in
the spring of 1894.
Buff-coloured terra cotta sheathed the building's fire-proofed steel
frame on the street frontages. Adler & Sullivan designed the upper
walls as a series of projecting bays alternating with broad openings
containing Chicago-style windows, all framed by simple mouldings.
The Chicago Stock Exchange remained a tenant until 1908, when it
moved to Burnham & Root's Rookery Building. The space was later
used by several financial institutions, and then became a USO service
centre. Despite worldwide appeals to save the Chicago Stock
Exchange Building, the structure was razed in the early seventies.
Many components of the building were salvaged and are now
displayed in museums and collections around the world.
The Bayard Building
In 1895, Dankmar Adler retired from Adler &
Sullivan, and in 1896, struck out on his own.
The Bayard Building represents Sullivan's first
major commission after the dissolution of his
partnership with Adler and his only work in
New York City. The building was designed as a
light industrial structure with open-floor areas.
Still standing
The image above shows a cast-iron ornament at the store's
Madison and State Street entry.
The National Farmers' Bank in
Owatonna

The National Farmers' Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota was the first

in a series of eight small rural bank projects undertaken in the last
years of Sullivan's career. The commission was obtained through
the efforts of Carl K. Bennett, the president of the National
Farmers' Bank, who had been deeply impressed by Sullivan's
essay "What Is Architecture: A Study of the American People of
Today," which appeared in the magazineThe Craftsmanin 1906.

The banking portion of the building was enclosed within a massive

cubic volume penetrated on both street elevations by prominent
arched openings in filled with green and yellow leaded glass.

Still standing
 View of National Farmer's Bank's main banking room with 1950s
modifications to teller areas and lighting. The bank's interior was a
single open space, with the banking facilities arranged around the
perimeter. The two in filled arches located on the high wall were
decorated with Oskar Gross murals depicting farm scenes. The
employee areas were left open to admit the filtered natural light from
the art-glass arched windows and skylight.
A detail of the facade on
National Farmer's Bank
(James Blair)