Louis Sullivan
If you've ever looked at a city's skyline, and marveled at the diversity of shapes created by skyscrapers, you have Louis Sullivan to thank. The father of modernism, creator of a visual lexicon for skyscrapers, and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, was born in Boston in 1856. From the age of 16 to 18 Sullivan's career was marked by a whirlwind passage through MIT, followed by work with architect Frank Furness, followed by work with William LeBaron Jenney. Jenney, the creator of the steel-frame building, had booming business as a result of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Sullivan then studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, becoming strongly influenced by the spirit of Renaissance artistic exploration. After returning to Chicago, he worked with Dankman Adler, first as a draftman, then as an architect. He quickly became known for successes like the 1891 Wainwright building, an early skyscraper that created a new architectural lexicon for steel high-rise construction, and defined the idea of the modern skyscraper, breaking away from constraints imposed by older materials and building techniques. The expression of this vocabulary gave rise to the Modernist architectural movement, a movement often summarized by Sullivan's phrase "form follows function." Interestingly, unlike many of his successors, Sullivan did not take this to imply that ornament on buildings should be avoided: instead, his buildings are decorated with elements such as Art Nouveau vines that highlight and emphasize the verticality of steel-frame buildings when compared with their stone or brick predecessors. It took some time for Sullivan's approach to gain universal acceptance: at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exhibition, his Transportation Building and arched "Golden Door" were the only two buildings to emphasize new architectural directions. After the completion of the 1895 Guaranty Building, Sullivan broke up his partnership with Adler, and entered a period of years of personal difficulties. Nonetheless, Sullivan continued to create remarkable architecture, including a series of banks throughout the Midwest, nicknamed his "Jewel Boxes." Sullivan died impoverished in a Chicago hotel room in 1924; his disciple Frank Lloyd Wright helped fund his funeral.
