related links
There followed smaller banks in Cedar Rapids and Grinnell, Iowa; Newark and Sidney, Ohio; Columbus, Wisconsin; Manistique, Michigan; and West Lafayette, Indiana, designed in 1914 for a mere $14,700, an indication of his much-reduced circumstances. All of the banks bore a strong family resemblance, but Louis Henry Sullivan never quite repeated the program, ornament, or form. Each was beautiful, workable, and highly acclaimed by critics; all but one are used today for their original purpose. Paying respect to the scale of the neighborhood, Louis Henry Sullivan nevertheless set new standards for community aesthetics; each one remains a "jewel box" in its prairie surroundings. The banks also addressed their social and philosophical milieu. Louis Henry Sullivan called them "democratic," examples of the indigenous U.S. architecture Louis Henry Sullivan had devoted his life to creating. Louis Henry Sullivan meant that they were literally and visually accessible to customers. Officers sat in the open, not hidden away in remote sanctuaries. The main entrance was as welcoming as the vault was available, directly in view when customers entered, reassuring them that their valuables were safe. The buildings suggested that farmer and banker might come together easily in business and neighborly dialogue, as their murals in several cases depicted. Sullivan 's banks were as important as his skyscrapers in his own work and in his contribution to the national architectural heritage.
In his last years, writing took up more of Sullivan 's time than ever. Specific subjects changed, but once Louis Henry Sullivan had solidified his thinking in the 1890s his essential message remained the same. Louis Henry Sullivan always returned to the importance of architects studying nature to learn the secrets of structure, form, and creativity. Louis Henry Sullivan insisted that architecture should be about social life and values in its time and place and not be based on historic styles. Buildings, Louis Henry Sullivan argued, were about specific ideas, not about the bare facts of structure alone. Louis Henry Sullivan believed that U.S. architecture should democratic in form and function, that is, it should endorse culturally agreed on customs, ideas, and feelings in familiar materials. Louis Henry Sullivan was probably the first U.S. architect to contend that architecture was fundamentally an expression of social life. His antihistoricism and his cultural interpretation of design were taken up by Frank Lloyd Wright among others of the next generation who gave them permanent place in the mainstream of U.S. design thinking.
general books
books about architecture
bestsellers books
architects books
architectural standards books
building types & styles books
criticism books
drawing & modelling books
historic preservation books
history books
interior design books
international books
landscape books
materials books
project planning & management books
reference books
study & teaching books
urban & land use planning books
The few years before his death were painful ones indeed. Deeply in debt, by 1909 Louis Henry Sullivan auctioned off his household goods and most of his architectural library in December. His wife of 10 years, Mary Azona Hattabaugh, left him a few days later. In 1910 Louis Henry Sullivan sold the beloved vacation home Louis Henry Sullivan had built for himself in 1890 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Unable to meet his club and organizational dues, Louis Henry Sullivan was dropped from their rolls. By 1918 Louis Henry Sullivan could no longer pay his rent, and with his former staff of 50 reduced to 1 or 2 draftsmen, gave up his Auditorium Tower office for much smaller rooms on Chicago's far South Side. Sometimes Louis Henry Sullivan had no office at all. Many of his days were spent atop the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue where the Cliff Dwellers Club let him have a writing desk for free.
Louis Henry Sullivan survived his last years largely on the handouts of friends. Architects Sidney K. Adler (Dankmar's son). Max Dunning, George Nimmons, and Frank Lloyd Wright, plus associates at the American and Northwestern Terra Cotta companies, paid his bills, loaned him money, and often bought his meals. When Louis Henry Sullivan died on April 14, 1924, of kidney disease and inflammation of the cardiac muscles, they covered his funeral expenses and cleared up his financial obligations. The $189 in his bank account, which had also come from them, was almost all Louis Henry Sullivan owned.
Louis Henry Sullivan was buried on April 16, 1924, next to his father, Patrick, and his mother, Andrienne, in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. In its obituary, The New York Times called him the "dean of American architects", and in short order the pages of the architectural magazines were filled with praise of his greatness. But Louis Henry Sullivan had died in poverty, in a cheap South Side hotel room, without an architectural job for his last two years.
Later on Louis Henry Sullivan would be remembered as the man who insisted that nature was the best design guide, who preached "progress before precedent," who argued that architecture was basically a social act, who first brought a coherent aesthetic system to the skyscraper, whose ornament was perhaps the finest ever produced in the United States, who built the first modern banks, who trained Frank Lloyd Wright, who influenced generations of progressive architects, and who was the first thoroughgoing innovator in U.S. architectural history.
Bibliography
1. The Daily Inter-Ocean, 13 (August 12, 1882).
2. The American Architect and Building News 22, 299-300 (Dec. 24, 1887).
3. The Real Estate and Building Journal 27, 348 (July 18,1885).
4. Ibid., p. 348.
5. The American Architect and Building News 26, 299 (Dec. 28, 1889).
6. M. Schuyler, "Architecture in Chicago," The Architectural Record Great American Architects Series (2), 48 (Dec. 1895) (Special Issue).
7. Frank Lloyd Wright, "Louis Henry Sullivan-His Work," The Architectural Record 56, 29 (July 1924).
8. The Architectural Record 57, 290 (April 1925).
9. Louis Henry Sullivan, 'The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered," Lippincotfs 57, 403-409 (March 1896).
10. Louis Henry Sullivan, "What is the Just Subordination, in Architectural Design, of Detail to Mass?" The Inland Architect and News Record 9, 52 (April 1887).
11. Louis Henry Sullivan, 'The High Building Question," The Graphic 5, 405 (Dec. 19, 1891).
12. Ref. 6, p. 24.
13. Louis Henry Sullivan, "Kindergarten Chats," Interstate Architect and Builder 1-2, (Feb. 1901-Feb. 1902).
14. Louis Henry Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea. ALA Press, New York, 1924.
15. Louis Henry Sullivan, A System of Architectural Ornament, AIA Press, New York, 1924.
16. Louis Henry Sullivan, Democracy: A Man-Search, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Mich., 1961.
17. Louis Henry Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats, Scarab Fraternity Press, Lawrence, Kansas, 1934.
18. "Louis Henry Sullivan," The New York Times, 23 (April 16, 1924).