louis sullivan
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ARCHITECT LOUIS HENRY SULLIVAN
ARCHITECT LOUIS SULLIVAN Louis Henry Sullivan (September
3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) An American architect Called the “FATHER OF
SKYSCRAPERS” An influential architect and critic
of the Chicago School A mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright,
and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School.
Sullivan is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture“
He posthumously received the AIA Gold Medal in 1944.
born to Irish and Swedish immigrants in 1856 grew up at grandparent’s farm learning things about
nature spent a lot of time around Boston exploring and looking at buildings studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology entered at the age of 16 he left MIT in a year to live in Pennsylvania then he went to Chicago, where he worked with the
father of the skyscraper, William Le Baron went to Paris in 1874 studied at Ecole des Beaux-Arts returned to Chicago in 1875 got a job as a draftsman
in the office of Joseph S. Johnson & John Edelman left Johnson in 1879 worked in the office of Dankmar Adler the firm of Adler & Sullivan designed over 180
buildings during its existence
Sullivan and the steel high-rise The taller the building, the more strain this placed on
the lower sections of the building; since there were clear engineering limits to the weight such "load-bearing" walls could sustain, large designs meant massively thick walls on the ground floors, and definite limits on the building's height.
The development of cheap, versatile steel in the second half of the 19th century changed those rules.
A much more urbanized society was forming and the society called out for new, larger buildings.
The mass production of steel was the main driving force behind the ability to build skyscrapers during the mid-1880s.
Louis Sullivan coined the phrase "form ever follows function", which, shortened to "form follows function," would become the great battle-cry of modernist architects.
Philosophy Louis Sullivan coined the phrase "form ever follows function", This credo, which placed the demands of practical use above
aesthetics, would later be taken by influential designers to imply that decorative elements, which architects call "ornament," were superfluous in modern buildings.
But Sullivan himself neither thought nor designed along such dogmatic lines during the peak of his career.
Indeed, while his buildings could be spare and crisp in their principal masses, he often punctuated their plain surfaces with eruptions of lush Art Nouveau and something like Celtic Revival decorations, usually cast in iron or terra cotta, and ranging from organic forms like vines and ivy, to more geometric designs, and interlace, inspired by his Irish design heritage.
Terra cotta is lighter and easier to work with than stone masonry. Sullivan used it in his architecture because it had a malleability that was appropriate for his ornament.
Probably the most famous example is the writhing green ironwork that covers the entrance canopies of the Carson Pirie Scott store on South State Street. These ornaments, often executed by the talented younger draftsman in Sullivan's employ, would eventually become Sullivan's trademark; to students of architecture, they are his instantly-recognizable signature.
Another signature element of Sullivan's work is the massive, semi-circular arch. Sullivan employed such arches throughout his career—in shaping entrances, in framing windows, or as interior design.
All of these elements can be found in Sullivan's widely-admired Guaranty Building, which he designed while partnered with Adler.
this office building in Buffalo, New York is in the Palazzo style, visibly divided into three "zones" of design: a plain, wide-windowed base for the ground-level shops; the main office block, with vertical ribbons of masonry rising unimpeded across nine upper floors to emphasize the building's height; and an ornamented cornice perforated by round windows at the roof level, where the building's mechanical units (like the elevator motors) were housed.
Louis Sullivan’s Buildings
Auditorium Building Location: 430 S.
Michigan AvenueChicago Illinois 60605 United States
Coordinates: 41°52′34″N 87°37′31″WCoordinates: 41°52′34″N 87°37′31″W
Built: 1889 Architect: Dankmar
Adler; Louis Sullivan Architectural style:
Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Movements
Governing body: PrivateSignificant dates Added to NRHP: April
17, 1970 Designated NHL: May
15, 1975[
Designated CL: September 15, 1976
The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1970.
It was declared aNational Historic Landmark in 1975,
and was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 15, 1976.
In addition, it is a historic district contributing property for the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District.
Since 1947, the Auditorium Building has been the home of Roosevelt University.
The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building and is located at 50 East Congress Parkway. The theater was the first home of the Chicago Civic Opera and theChicago Symphony Orchestra.
Origin and purpose 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 expensive theater that would rival such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He was said to have wanted to make high culture accessible to the working classes of Chicago.
The building was to include an office block and a first class hotel. "The Auditorium was built for a syndicate of businessmen to
house a large civic opera house; to provide an economic base it was decided to wrap the auditorium with a hotel and office block.
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's Marshall Field Wholesale Store. The interior embellishment, however, is wholly Sullivan's, and some of the details, because of their continuous curvilinear foliate motifs, are among the nearest equivalents to European Art Nouveau architecture."
WAINWRIGHT BUILDING Location: St.Louis,
Missouri Date: 1890 to
1891 Building Type:
early skyscraper, commercial office tower
Construction System: steel frame clad in masonry
Climate: temperate
Context: urban Style: Early
Modern Notes: An early tall
building (10 stories) with an all steel frame. The Chicago School.
"The eleven-storey Wainwright
Building represents Sullivan's first attempt at a truly multi-storey format, in which the device of the suppressed transom taken from the faade of Richardson's Marshall �Field Store, Chicago of 1888, is used to impart a decidedly vertical emphasis to the building's overall form.
The two-storey base of the classical tripartite composition is faced in fine red sandstone set on a two-foot-high string course of red Missouri granite.
While the middle section consists of red brick pilasters with decorated terra cotta spandrels, the top is rendered as a deep overhanging cornice faced in an ornamented terra cotta skin to match the enrichment of the spandrels and the pilasters below."
GUARANTY BUILDING
Year(s) of construction:1895-1896
Height:46 m Floors:13 Location:28 Church
Street, Buffalo, New York, United States
Coordinates:42° 52' 59" N, 78° 52' 36" W
NATIONAL FARMER’S BANK
Location:Owatonna, Minnesota
Date :1907 to 1908 timeline
Building Type :bank Construction Syste
m: bearing masonry
Climate: temperate Context: urban,
small city Style :Early Modern Notes: large arch
in main facadeCorner view, from southwestMain facade, from west
Interior, east wall Interior, east entrance wall South windows
Interior, ceiling/northwest corner
Interior, ceiling/southeast corner Ceiling
Photo, exterior overview, historical
The Carson Pirie Scott Building Location:Chicago, Illinois Coordinates:
41°52′54.16″N87°37′39.18″W Built:1899 Architect:Louis Sullivan;
Burnham, Daniel H., & Co. Architectural style:Late 19th
and Early 20th Century American Movements
Governing body:Private NRHP Reference#:70000231 Significant datesAdded to
NRHP:April 17, 1970 Designated NHL:May 15, 1975 Designated CL:November 5,
1970
mahogany and marble fixtures . new combination arc and incandescent lights the] largest and finest display windows in the world reading, writing and rest rooms . . . telephone booths . . . [an]
emergency medical aid room . . . [an] exposition of oriental rugs . . . and 10,000 chrysanthemums
The Carson Pirie Scott building had the most clearly expressed steel frame of any building in Chicago.
The frame, sheathed in glazed white terra cotta, allowed for some of the largest windows ever seen and flexible, wide-open spaces.
Both of these features were key to a successful department store and examples of Sullivan’s famous design philosophy, “Form follows Function.”
But what really makes Sullivan’s design stand out is the building’s lavish foliate ornamentation. Every inch of the framework surrounding Carson’s bottom story windows is covered in entirely original cast-iron, nature-inspired embellishments
Schlesinger and Mayer Department Store
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Date:1899 to 1904 Building Type:
department store Construction System
: cast iron ground floor storefront
Climate: temperate Context: urban Style: Early Modern
Elevation Drawing
Plan Drawing
Section Drawing
Instead of a stack of undifferentiated office rooms, the department store required broad horizontal open spaces where goods could be displayed; at the ground floor the windows were to be showcases highlighting selected wares.
Thus in the finished building, constructed in two phases in 1899 and 1903-4, the horizontal line, rather than the vertical, is dominant, with the broad spandrel panels brought up flush with the narrow vertical piers.
Nevertheless the tripartite division is present with (a) ground floor windows richly encrusted with cast iron frames by Sullivan and his assistant Elmslie, (b) midsection, and (c) the terminating attic and cornice slab. As in Burnham and Root's Reliance Building, there is a change in color, away from the reds and browns, to glazed white terra cotta.
"Originally built for the established firm of Schlesinger and Meyer, the first three-bay, nine-storey phase of this department store was erected in 1899, and the second, twelve-storey increment on the corner of Madison and State Streets between 1903 and 1904
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH•Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa •Date:1910 to 1914 •Building Type: church• Construction System: brick bearing masonry•Climate: temperate•Context: suburban•Style: Early Modern
A building quite devoid of ornament may convey a noble and dignified sentiment by virtue of mass and proportion
That which exists in spirit ever seeks and finds its visible counterpart in form, its visible image...a living thought, a living form
"...the architect who combines in his being the powers of vision , of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and true—is he who shall create poems in stone...
Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral Holy Trinity
Orthodox Cathedral ..Address: 1121 N. Leavitt St.Year Built: 1903 Date Designated a Chicago Landmark: March 21, 1979 ...
The church was commissioned by the growing Russian congregation of Chicago ... Construction work, partly financed by Tsar St. Nicholas II of Russia, lasted from 1899 to 1903.
The church retains many features of the Russian provincial architecture, including an octagonal dome and a frontal bell tower.
It is believed that the emigrants wished the church to be "remindful of the small, intimate, rural buildings they left behind in the Old World .
The cathedral's interior is based on the St Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kiev. The church was elevated to a cathedral in 1923, and stands today a proud member of the Orthodox community in Chicago.
The walls of the church are load-bearing brick covered with stucco; the detailing of the two-story rectory repeats the same sinuous curve found in the roofline of the church.
Babson House Location:
Riverside, Illinois Date:1907 Building Type:
house Construction Syst
em: brick bearing masonry
Climate: temperate
Context: suburban Style: Eclectic
Romanesque Revival, Richardsonian
Notes: Plan with main and crossing axes
One quality consistent in the spaces of Sullivan's houses from the Charnley House to the Babson House is their insertion in an embracing rectangular prism through which the major and minor axes struggle.
Beginning in 1909, Sullivan's interior spaces finally freed themselves from this restraining carapace, emerging in a series of cross-shaped plans in the two Bradley House projects and the Bennett House design.
These compositions are no less processional, centering on a space just beyond the entrance point, enclosed in thickened poched walls, projecting dramatic axes forward and to each side, manifested externally as juxtaposed volumes.
Sullivan's walls are thick, the windows deeply inset, and his masses can be marked with cantilevers like those over the porches of the erected Bradley House Ñnot floating in the manner of Wright's Prairie Style but laboring with elaborate brackets to express the work of opening the interior space outward."
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Reena Tomar Ruchi Chourasia