Authentic American Architecture: Louis Sullivan

Frank Lloyd Wright’s imaginatively grand and organic architectural structures continue to captivate modern viewers today. Like every great artist, there exists behind him or her, a great teacher and fountain from which innovative ideas spring forth. For Wright, Louis Sullivan was not only that inspiration, but artistic spring board for his later architectural accomplishments that changed the landscape of American architecture.

Louis Sullivan is often hailed as America’s first truly modern architect for having left behind the standard imitation of historical styles for his own unique forms and architectural details. Coming out of the Chicago School or architecture, where some of his famous buildings still stand today, Sullivan revolutionized the design of tall (versus wide) buildings by creating unity and emphasizing the power of the vertical rise, pioneering the way for the advent of the “skyscraper.” Sullivan was no longer interested in basic functionality, and instead chose to focus on the idea that the exterior of any building should not only reflect its interior function, but interior environment and spirit as well. He believed that architectural ornament should be derived from the natural world, because therein, lay the apex of beauty.

An architectural return to nature was not just unique to Sullivan, but a characteristic of the Art Nouveau movement, prominent from 1890 until 1914, during which time painters, architects, and sculptors alike rebelled against classical and formal approaches to design. Art Nouveau buildings typically featured many arches and curved forms that mimicked nature, asymmetrical shapes, mosaics, plant-like embellishments, and mosaics.

Louis Sullivan imbued upon Art Nouveau his own spin: terra cotta. Sullivan’s masonry walls often featured terra cotta designs, which he preferred for its light weight and close appearance to that of stone. It has been said that it was his favorite building material as he often used the terra cotta as a canvas for intertwining vines, leaves, and geometric shapes.

The economic depression of the 1920s and the changing public aesthetic caused Sullivan’s work to fall out of favor and demand. Many of his beautiful buildings fell into disrepair or were demolished a few decades later. There are a few, however, that remain standing today as symbols of authentic American architecture. The Bayard Building, for example, is still erect in New York City with its light industrial structure and open-floor areas. St. Louis’s famous Wainwright Building stands proudly as one of Sullivan’s first steel-framed building designs with a one-of-a-kind façade. And finally, the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, NY, is a testament to his architectural and aesthetic adaptability, looming as one of the first steel-supported and curtain-walled office building in the world featuring Sullivan’s delicate and trademark terra cotta designs. Without Sullivan, the modern skyscraper may have looked quite different.