Michael Vega
ARCH 3006
Louis Sullivan and the Skyscraper
Louis Sullivan began to solve a problem that had never come up before, in a way that
was entirely new, and in doing so, demonstrated not only the solution to the problem of
skyscrapers, but also the process of problem solving, helped the synthesis of new architectural
languages gain acceptance. His buildings were beautiful both despite and because of the
problems they successfully dealt with, yet they are much more to the profession than a single
successful building. They are the triumph over so many issues that existed then, and by
extension, show that triumph is possible over present and future issues. His life was unique, and
produced the one-of-a-kind thinker needed to solve these issues.
Louis Sullivan was born and raised in Boston. He was imnporessed by the Masonic
temple, and upon observing the dignified carriage and a worker’s perspective of an “archeetec,”
he decided to become one himself. He proceeded to go to high school, and test out of both his
last year, and the first few at “Tech” after some encouragement from a friend in Chicago. There
he honed his drawing skills and learned much about the classical orders, beginning to notice an
intrinsic problem within the five orders, that they could not be as resolved and perfected as they
were taught to be. This spark of unrest may just have been enough to drive him away from
classicism and historicism and into new forms, languages and solutions. Despite a feeling of
comradeship with his classmates, he felt that the school was merely a lesser imitation of the Ecole
de Beaux-arts, so he resolved to drop out and transfer to Paris, after a year of working in the real
world and gaining practical experience. He went to New York for this, and, ignoring advice of
others to seek out a Mr. Frank Furness, preferred to wander the city until he found a building he
liked. Upon doing so, and inquiring as to the architect, he found that it was none other than
Frank Furness himself. He then proceeded to walk into the architect’s office and inform him of
his new draftsman. After a heated debate, some explanation about the building Sullivan had
seen, and a few weeks of trial periods, Sullivan had a job. Furness proved to be quite an
influence on Sullivan, demonstrating what an architect should be, exacting, precise, creative, and
cognizant of every detail. Eventually, however, the economy went sour, and business dried up.
Furness had to let someone go, and “as you were the last to come, it is only just that you be the
first to go”(Autobiography, 196.)
Sullivan then got on a train to Chicago, for the ample opportunities there. The
landscape, and raw power of nature overwhelmed him on the journey there, no doubt
influencing his continual return to natural themes in his ornamentation and architecture.
Upon arrival, he wandered around Chicago until he found a building he liked,
and inquired as to the architect. He then went and sought employment with Major William
LeBaron Jenney. This experience taught him the other side of architects; Jenney didn’t actually
design the building, but he largely let the draftsmen do it. He enjoyed Jenney’s company from
time to time, but on the whole did not admire him particularly. Eventually, he left, to draft for
Dankmar Adler, whose firm he soon became a partner in. Together, they would deal with some
of the biggest issues facing that city and the region, such as the soil conditions, the methods of
steel construction, and the aesthetics of tall buildings.
In 1887, Adler and Sullivan were commissioned to build the Auditorium Building in
Chicago. In the spirit of Chicago that Sullivan frequently observed, it was to be the best opera
and concert hall in the world, which would remain available to the public at low ticket prices due
to other, supporting functions in the building: an office block at the west end, and a hotel on the
east. This necessitated a huge building; filling the half-block site, and necessitating 10 floors, plus
the later addition of a tower. He dealt with the scale by emulating the recently completed
Marshall Field warehouse by H.H. Richardson, a decision made even more interesting because
Marshall Field himself was one of the benefactors and stockholders of the auditorium theater.
Sullivan wrapped the theater in the office and hotel blocks, insulating it from the outside world
spatially and acoustically, while maximizing the window space and natural lighting on the
exterior of the building. These blocks are unified by the Richardsonian façade of rhythmic
arches, only modified to the increased scale; the largest arches span four floors, and the smaller
ones span two. The load-bearing rusticated stone exterior continues in the tradition of
Richardson, and back to the urban Italian palazzos, and even back to the Roman aqueducts. The
hotel and office blocks share much of the same language, differentiated only by their location in
the building. They are separated, however, by the tower, the most dramatic departure from the
rest of the building. The tower served to bring the pieces together, serving as the boundary of the
office block on one side, and the hotel from the other. It contained the huge arches which were
the entry to the interior auditorium, and the highest, mostly recognizable part of the building.
The tower connects everything; it brings attention to the building as a whole, and also focuses it
into and through the arches; it is the only external expression the auditorium has, yet it works
with the hotel on one side, and the offices on the other. While it is a steel building, it is not
articulated as such, but rather as a masonry building. Sullivan attributes the building to his
masonry period, before his epiphany and transition to a more truthful expression of structure.
This epiphany he later described as the breaking of a tulip; that suddenly a boundary is
reached and the tulip either opens, or it never does. In Sullivan’s case, as the story goes, he
returned to his office in the auditorium theater after visiting the future site of the Wainwright
building. To clear his head, he took a walk down Michigan Street, but came running back in
later, to furiously sketch his idea, to the amazement of the other draftsmen.
Sullivan’s Wainwright building was his first attempt at artistically considering the tall
office building. His argument for the direction he took, later published in Lippincott’s Magazine,
is solidly based in logical, truthful representation. He analyzes the purpose of the necessary parts
of the office building, and expresses their differing natures and purposes in the exterior of the
building. He separates the building into three parts; the base, the shaft, and the cornice.
However, he had not yet reached, or perhaps did not yet fully trust it at this point, as he varies
artistically from absolute truthfulness.
The base of the building represents its horizontal reference to the site and the ground
plane, in addition to being more open and transparent, to facilitate entry to the building. He
defines the base of the building as the first and second floors, as they see the most pedestrian
traffic. The materiality and horizontality of these floors draw the occupant in, and relate to the
outside world on a more personal scale. However, in this case, the second floor is
programmatically identical to the upper floors, rather than the ground floor, and doesn’t
programmatically fit into his concept of the base. While he still articulates the floor within the
language of the base, he alludes to this slight deception by continuing the pattern of the windows
from the upper levels.
The shaft of the building houses the office spaces, which are separated from the ground,
and relate only to one another, each the same as every other, implying a continuity and
modularity throughout. This is articulated to express other characteristics of the building. The
building’s sheer height is expressed, rather than de-emphasized, by the protruding mullions,
which contribute to the sense of verticality of the building. These mullions also express the steel
frame of the building, as the dominant mullions articulate the columns holding up the beams,
which are represented by the recessed, yet still important spandrel panels. The two interact to
form the modular grid, both expressing the skeletal structural grid supporting the building, and
the modular, regular plans of the offices inside. However, Sullivan steps away from truthful
expression, as only every other mullion expresses a real column or office division behind it. The
intermediary lines serve only to enhance the verticality of the outside façade. The shaft is tied to
the cornice and base by its location and by the corner piers, which emphasize the verticality and
demonstrate the sheer height by continuing in one unbroken line from the bottom to the top.
The cornice houses the necessary mechanical systems in the attic,, while also serving to
stop the vertical motion of the shaft, and provide a definitive end to the building.
The site for this particular building is located on a street corner, so Sullivan presented
both streets with a broad façade of the building, protecting a central light well from the view of
the street. The U-shaped building can only been viewed form two sides, which make it seem
almost as a solid, almost cubic block.
The Guaranty Building continues and revises the train of thought of the Wainwright
building, attempting to find the perfect expression of the tall office building for any site. As a
result, it more closely follows the plain logic of his argument. Like the Wainwright, it is a terracotta covered, steel framed office building, with some retail use on the ground and second floors.
As it is situated on a corner lot, as was the Wainwright, it also uses a U shaped plan with a light
court. ,A smaller site called for a taller, twelve story building, and a true two story base, fixing
the slight incongruence between his argument for all tall buildings, and the built form of the
Wainwright. He keeps the added mullions, but better integrates them into the cornice, widening
the porthole windows to reference the vertical window bands in the shaft, and extending the
ornament from the cornice down into the vertical structural expressions, covering the entire
building in ornament. The effect unifies the building, while attempting to create balance despite
the large distance between the bottom and the top. This balance is achieved by using light
ornament at the base of the building, and gradually increasing it as one ascends, balancing the
depth of ornament with the distance from the viewer. This building is regarded by many as
Sullivan’s best skyscraper, his last, and his closest to the ideal he puts forward in his article a few
years later. The building speaks to so many, as he has worked the basic idea so as to agree with
many different value systems. In his essay, he addresses how the three-part design appeases
those who view the building as a classical column with Sullivan’s base, shaft, and capita; he
addresses the renaissance ideal of ratios, and numerical, “mystical symbolism,” by pointing out
the significance of the three parts and the significance of that number. For the pure logician, the
significance of the beginning, middle, and end of an argument shows itself in the building. For
the naturalist, the building evokes flowers’ leaves, stem and flower, or the root, trunk and
branches of trees. Sullivan alludes to this meaning further by his characteristic addition of
naturalistic ornamentation, in this case of seed pods, which, as Sullivan understood, were the
absolute end result of any plant. For those who look for a unity of parts, he has the three distinct
levels; for those who look for one building, subdivided, he keeps the pieces inseparable as
beginning is to middle is to end.
The Guaranty building proved to be the last that Adler and Sullivan would do together.
Business slowed down, and Adler was forced to quit and take a higher-paying job to support his
wife and children. Sullivan, forced to complete the Guaranty building on his own, did not
acknowledge Adler for his contribution, and a rift opened between them that kept them from
working together again. Without each other to play off of, their success was ended, and each
faded away into obscurity.
Sullivan’s logical, yet revolutionary breakthrough regarding skyscrapers helped to bring
a new style and language into usage, in a time where many used existing languages, helping new
languages to be accepted. His designs helped to push architecture forward, and free of the
constraints of existing languages and revivalist movements.
Louis Sullivan Sources
Condit, Carl W. The Chicago School of Architecture. The University of Chicago Press.
Chicago, Illinois. 1964
This source explains Sullivan’s relation to other architects at the time, and his
place in the creation of the Chicago School of architecture. His role in building off of others, such
as Burnham and Root, and his training of Wright and others, and the use and expansion upon his
ideas is also expressed.
Charernbhak, Wichit. Chicago School of Architects and Their Critics. UMI Research
Press. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1981.
This source shows the successes and failures of the Chicago School, showing Sullivan’s
collaboration and works as part of the whole, instead of focusing solely on him. His works are
shown along with his contemporaries’ criticisms of them, showing the attitudes and debates of
the times Sullivan worked in.
Sullivan, Louis H. A System of Ornament. The Eakins Press. New York, New York.
1924.
This book illustrates Sullivan’s system and method of ornamentation, and the theories
behind it, in Sullivan’s own words. He treats the book as a “How to” sort of book, explaining in
detail how to expand from simple natural shapes to complex ornamentation.
Sullivan, Louis H. Democracy, a Man-Search. Wayne State University Press. Detroit,
Michigan. 1961.
This source is very limited in that it does not directly address architecture, but rather the
philosophy of democracy. It can be used to show Sullivan’s style of reasoning and beliefs as they
tie to architecture, and can illuminate another side of him, but it does not describe any of his
works.
Sullivan, Louis H. The Autobiography of an Idea. AIA Press. New York, New York.
1926.
Sullivan’s autobiography shows his views on the matters deemed most
important to him, and, while spending much time on his childhood and why he became an
architect, also shows his story as he apprentices and learns from the other masters in the Chicago
School, and his views about them, in his own words.
Sullivan, Louis H. The Testament of Stone. Edited by Maurice English. Northwestern
University Press. United States. 1963.
Here Sullivan’s own words are grouped about certain issues, such as the
American style of Architecture (or lack thereof,) Architectural education, the Tokyo earthquake
and the Imperial hotel’s survival, The Tribune competition, the White City, among other subjects.
This will aid in determining Sullivan’s overall method of thinking and the beliefs and rules he
lived and designed by. While not often describing certain buildings, the words and personal
convictions of Sullivan would be readable nonetheless in all his buildings.
Szarkowski, John. The Idea of Louis Sullivan. University of Minnesota Press.
Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1956.
This is a collection of quotations, pictures, and anecdotes about Sullivan, loosely
grouped together roughly by the various buildings of his. While it is difficult to learn much from
this style, It can add insight to information gleaned from the other books.
Twombly, Robert. Louis Sullivan: His Life and Work. Elizabeth Sifton Books. Viking
Penguin, Inc. New York, New York. 1986
Twombly’s biography also tells the story of Sullivan’s childhood, education, and
works, but From the point of view of the outside observer, emphasizing that which is important
to us today, in the eyes of history, instead of the eyes of Sullivan himself, which makes for a more
objective and unbiased assessment.
Weingarden, Lauren S. Louis H. Sullivan: The Banks. The MIT Press. Cambridge,
Massachusetts. 1987.
This source focuses on Sullivan’s banks, later in life, but explains much of his theory, and
explains the individual banks in great detail, and analyzes his design decisions.
Williams, Kenny J. In the City of Men. Townsend Press. Nashville, Tennessee. 1974.
This book describes Chicago and its rebuilding effort after the fire. It shows much about
Sullivan, but in that context, as one of the major rebuilders, emphasizing the rebuilding and
growth of the city, mentioning Sullivan as a contributing factor.