Sullivan, Louis Henri

Sullivan, Louis Henri (1856–1924) architect; born in Boston, Mass. He studied architecture for one year each at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, but gained most of his training in architects' offices in Philadelphia and Chicago. In partnership with Dankmar Adler (1881–95), Sullivan became perhaps the foremost exponent of the Chicago school, producing 120 buildings including such landmarks as the Auditorium (1886–90), Schiller (1891–93), and Stock Exchange (1893–94) Buildings and the Transportation Building at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, all in Chicago, and the Wainwright Building, St. Louis (1890–91). Sullivan's distinctive midwestern skyscrapers and office blocks were innovative and influential in their experimental skeleton construction, vertical articulation, and intricate low-relief ornamentation. After the partnership broke up, Sullivan designed a series of small midwestern banks and the Schlesinger and Mayer (Carson, Pirie, Scott) Building, Chicago (1899–1904); but he produced almost nothing in his last fifteen years and died in relative obscurity. He published a series of books elaborating, if not always clearly explaining, the revolutionary architectural philosophy ("form follows function") that made him the "Father of Modernism." Frank Lloyd Wright was his student. Sullivan was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1944.