Louis Sullivan

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Louis H. Sullivan

Louis Henry Sullivan (born September 3, 1856 in Boston , Massachusetts , † April 14, 1924 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American architect .

Life

Sullivan moved to Paris after dropping out of his studies at MIT and intermediate stops in New York , Philadelphia in 1873, to continue his studies there at the École des Beaux-Arts . At the same time he was working in the Paris studio of Émile Vaudremer , a supporter of the pioneer of the form-follows-function movement, Viollet-le-Duc . After a short time, however, Sullivan traveled on to Italy and graduated there at the age of 19. He returned to America and worked in the Chicago office of William Le Baron Jenney , known as one of the fathers of the skyscraper . The subsequent collaboration with the German engineer Dankmar Adler led in 1881 to the joint office Sullivan & Adler, which was formative for the so-called Chicago School . Frank Lloyd Wright also worked in this office for five years. The buildings built by Sullivan in the almost 20 years up to the turn of the century became famous and made architectural history. Adler left the office in 1895. Then Sullivan hit another big hit in 1899 with what is probably his most famous work, the Carson Pirie Scott Building department store , which is also known as the Sullivan Center. After the turn of the century, with the time of the Chicago School , Sullivan's professional peak was over.

Graceland Cemetery - Chicago, Illinois, USA

He also entered the history of architecture and design with a quote from his article The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered in Lippincott's Magazine from 1896: form follows function . Translated logically, this means something like “The shape of a building or an object is derived from its function.” However, he quotes the saying of his partner Dankmar Adler, who in turn had taken it over from Henri Labrouste.

Sullivan died lonely, destitute and severely alcoholic after his star steadily declined over the years of separation with partner Adler. After his poor death, he was buried in the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago with the financial support of Frank Lloyd Wright . Today a memorial stone erected in 1929 commemorates Louis Henri Sullivan. The very simple shape on the one hand is remarkable, on the other hand the "high-rise buildings" carved out on the sides pay homage to the former co-founder of the Chicago school. Later, Frank Lloyd Wright set him a literary monument with his book Genius and the Mobocracy and described himself in it as the “pencil” in the hand of his old “love-master”.

Buildings (selection)

The Wainwright Building

Banks

Fonts

Wainwright Building, Saint Louis (1890), detail of the cornice
Merchants' National Bank, Grinnell (1914)

literature

Movies

  • Sullivan's banks (= photography and beyond - part 2 ). Director: Heinz Emigholz , 35 minutes, Germany 1993–2001, 2007 also released on DVD.

Web links

Commons : Louis Sullivan  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Lloyd Wright: Genius and the Mobocracy . Duane, Sloan and Pearce, New York 1949.
  2. ^ Transportation Building. In: Photographs of the World's Fair. Werner Co., Chicago 1894, p. 121 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Sullivan, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sullivan, Louis Henri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American architect
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1924
Place of death Chicago