Beginning in the 1880s, Louis Sullivan advocated the creation of a new American architecture through the simplification of mass and ornamentation based on the growth of plants, as illustrated in this cast-bronze elevator grille from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building. Its masterful combination of geometric and organic forms—simple circle outlines with intricately detailed interior patterns—exemplify why Sullivan is considered the father of modern American architecture. Through his voluminous writings and innovative buildings, Sullivan became the philosophical leader of Prairie School architects and their search for a regional style that “echoed the spirit of the prairies of the great Middle West, which to them embodies the essence of democracy” (Pond 1918). Many of the most important American architects of the mid-twentieth century launched their careers in the Chicago office of Sullivan and his partner Dankmar Adler, including George Grant Elmslie, William Gray Purcell, George Washington Maher, Irving Gill, and most famously, Frank Lloyd Wright.
The thirteen-story, richly ornamented Stock Exchange (1892−94) was the largest office complex designed by Adler & Sullivan. It consolidates Sullivan’s experimentation with steel-framed skyscrapers, a type of structure then in its infancy. The three-part composition—a prominent entrance, a simplified and uniform midsection, and an ornate cornice—denotes the different uses of the building’s floors. In 1896, Sullivan codified these ideas in his landmark essay “The Tall Building Artistically Considered,” where he declared that “form ever follows function”—arguing that a building’s exterior should reflect the activities within. These words became the clarion call of all pioneers of modernism in the revolutionary decades that followed.
Wendy Kaplan, Department Head and Curator, Decorative Arts and Design
Adapted from the 2012 text
Bibliography
Pond 1918. Irving Pond. The Meaning of Architecture. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1918.
