Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Oh, this is another
Speaker 1: edition of person I've had on my list for a
Speaker 1: million years. We've both had a lot of them. Lately,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like revisit that list and not just
Speaker 1: put names on it and then hide it on my
Speaker 1: phone and not think about it again and then later
Speaker 1: be like I don't know what to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, hey, brainiac, you have a whole list
Speaker 1: of things that you've wanted to talk about. I had
Speaker 1: an internal conversation recently about whether to like just scrap
Speaker 1: my short list and start over because it's gotten so
Speaker 1: long and so many of the names now I just
Speaker 1: keep looking at and not not doing I'm picking and choosing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one that I have wanted to do for
Speaker 1: a while. You know. It's architectural, which I guess follows
Speaker 1: and my discussions of people in the arts, but it
Speaker 1: also I had come upon a thing recently where I
Speaker 1: literally overheard a kid in an airport talking to his
Speaker 1: mom about where skyscrapers came from like when did buildings
Speaker 1: get so tall? And I was like, don't tell him,
Speaker 1: don't tell him, but I know at least the start,
Speaker 1: and I figured now as this good a time as
Speaker 1: any to talk about that. So we are talking about
Speaker 1: a man who is to me similar to Jean Baptiste Lulie,
Speaker 1: and that he was kind of a pain in the
Speaker 1: neck to people that knew him, but was also you know,
Speaker 1: certainly has been lauded as a genius, and I think
Speaker 1: a little bit more than luli In his time, there
Speaker 1: were people that liked him and tried tried to make
Speaker 1: for him even after his like heyday was done. But
Speaker 1: if you have ever heard the phrase form follows function,
Speaker 1: that is attributed to this man, and you will see
Speaker 1: why as we talk about his work and how it's
Speaker 1: often inspired by nature, and how he had this whole
Speaker 1: ideology about architecture in the United States and how architecture
Speaker 1: should have its own unique American identity, and how he
Speaker 1: really tried to push boundaries in that regard and it
Speaker 1: didn't always work out. But so today we are talking
Speaker 1: about Louis Henry Sullivan or sometimes you'll see it Louis
Speaker 1: Arie Sullivan, because his mother was Swiss. He seemed to
Speaker 1: not really use the middle name so much that I
Speaker 1: saw one way or the other. I think he just
Speaker 1: let it be Americanized and let people do what they preferred. So.
Speaker 1: Louis Henry or Arie Sullivan was born September third, eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, in Boston, Massachusett. His father, Patrick Sullivan was
Speaker 1: Irish and taught dance, and his mother, Audrian Friends was
Speaker 1: liszt as Holly just said, was Swiss. He later wrote
Speaker 1: of her quote, she seemed French but not wholly so
Speaker 1: which I love that quote. Louis was their second child.
Speaker 1: He had a brother named Albert Walter Sullivan, who was
Speaker 1: two years older. When the boys were young, the Sullivans
Speaker 1: spent at least one summer on Cape Anne in a
Speaker 1: small area known as Folly Cove. Louis later relayed that
Speaker 1: he almost drowned there one day, and that a local
Speaker 1: farmer had saved him. In eighteen sixty nine, the Sullivans
Speaker 1: moved to Chicago, Illinois, but Louis didn't go with them.
Speaker 1: He stayed with his grandparents outside of Boston. Sullivan wrote
Speaker 1: about all of this in his autobiography in a pretty
Speaker 1: quaint way, noting that his grandparents really desperately wanted one
Speaker 1: of their grandchildren to live with them. This autobiography, which
Speaker 1: will quote from a lot, is in the third person,
Speaker 1: and he wrote, quote the farm had been but recently acquired,
Speaker 1: and the child appeared shortly thereafter as a greedy parasite
Speaker 1: to absorb that affection, that abundant warmth of heart which
Speaker 1: only Grandma and Grandpa have the intuitive folly to bestow.
Speaker 1: In short, they loved him and kept him bodily clean.
Speaker 1: Louis attended public school, which he described as a dreary prison,
Speaker 1: but he also said he didn't have any real memories
Speaker 1: of it, calling this time a quote gray blank. When
Speaker 1: writing of his early years, Sullivan describes himself as quote
Speaker 1: not an enfanteried, but but rather an independent, isolated compound
Speaker 1: of fury, curiosity, and tenderness. He hated most of his
Speaker 1: school lessons because they were perpetually pondering abstract questions featuring
Speaker 1: fictional scenarios. Occasionally, he'd kind of rally and do really
Speaker 1: well with his schoolwork for a while to try to
Speaker 1: please his grandmother, but then he would get bored again
Speaker 1: and kind of stop achieving. He was often in trouble
Speaker 1: and described being whipped across the hands with a ratan
Speaker 1: and class. By his own account, he was his grandparents pet.
Speaker 1: They let him do largely as he pleased, and that
Speaker 1: involved a lot of gardening. As a boy, he often
Speaker 1: skipped school and wandered around the countryside. He also describes
Speaker 1: being just enthralled anytime he saw people at work. The
Speaker 1: idea of work and being industrious was intriguing to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like this kid that was kind of rebellious,
Speaker 1: but not in a troublemakery kind of way. He writes
Speaker 1: about how like he was not one of those boys that,
Speaker 1: like in the stereotypical way of the day, wanted to
Speaker 1: get in fights and make messes and be dirty. He
Speaker 1: just like wanted to go sit in fields and look
Speaker 1: at flowers and grasses much farmers do in their thing.
Speaker 1: Ye yes uh. Louis enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of
Speaker 1: Technology in eighteen seventy two to study architecture, and at
Speaker 1: the time, the program, which came to be known as
Speaker 1: the School of Architecture and Planning was still very new.
Speaker 1: It had been founded in eighteen sixty five by architect
Speaker 1: William Robert Ware Initially, the program was a one or
Speaker 1: two year course of study, set up as sort of
Speaker 1: like a graduate program. You either had to have had
Speaker 1: an undergraduate degree or some experience in the field to
Speaker 1: enroll in it, and when Sullivan enrolled, the program had
Speaker 1: only been actively offering formal education for about four years
Speaker 1: because prior to eighteen sixty eight, that three years between
Speaker 1: the founding and then the curriculum was still in its
Speaker 1: planning stages. But even though the program was not long,
Speaker 1: Sullivan got frustrated with it. He left less than a
Speaker 1: year in. He thought he might go to Paris to
Speaker 1: study in the architecture program at Acol de Bozar, but
Speaker 1: he ended up taking the path of an apprentice working
Speaker 1: at the Furnace and Hewitt firm of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
Speaker 1: didn't stay there long either, though, just a few months.
Speaker 1: Sullivan's next move was to Chicago. By the end of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, he had secured a job there in
Speaker 1: William le Baron Jenny's office. Jenny had established his office
Speaker 1: in Chicago after having been an engineering officer in the
Speaker 1: US Civil War. This would have seemed like a perfect fit,
Speaker 1: but Sullivan was still restless and there just wasn't enough
Speaker 1: money flowing into construction to keep him occupied. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, he finally set out for Paris with the
Speaker 1: intent to study there. So this might seem like Louis
Speaker 1: Sullivan was finally achieving his dream. But if it was,
Speaker 1: he really wasn't any more focused at ecl de Bozar
Speaker 1: than he had been anywhere else. It's worth noting that
Speaker 1: he would have been just about eighteen at this point.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not all that surprising that he found himself
Speaker 1: distracted by the possibilities of his time in Europe. I'm
Speaker 1: forty seven, I would be distracted. Instead of studying, he
Speaker 1: did things like tour Italy. He was incredibly moved by
Speaker 1: the art of Michelangelo, which he saw for the first
Speaker 1: time while visiting Rome. He spent two full days in
Speaker 1: the Sistine Chapel, mostly by himself, and in his words
Speaker 1: quote communed in the silence with a superman. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: really held Michelangelo in extraordinarily high regard. He also spent
Speaker 1: a little time in the workshop of Emil vau Remat,
Speaker 1: who taught at Bozaar. So even though Sullivan wasn't a
Speaker 1: great student, it does seem like his educators saw some
Speaker 1: promise in him, and he had been the only American
Speaker 1: student admitted into the school that year. That was something
Speaker 1: that was made possible by him working pretty quickly to
Speaker 1: gain affluency in French just so he could pass the
Speaker 1: entrance exams. He was so smart and seemed so full
Speaker 1: of promise, but none of the avenues of study that
Speaker 1: he tried really gave him anything but frustration that he
Speaker 1: wasn't creating more and learning history less. He kind of
Speaker 1: felt like he was getting like memorize previous forms of
Speaker 1: architecture rather than being taught how to actually do things.
Speaker 1: He left Paris after less than a year there and
Speaker 1: returned to Chicago in the early summer of eighteen seventy five. Initially,
Speaker 1: Sullivan's work in Chicago after he returned from Europe was
Speaker 1: as a contractor draftsman. This freelance life gave him an
Speaker 1: opportunity to work with a lot of architecture offices to
Speaker 1: see what he liked. During these contract jobs, Sullivan was
Speaker 1: introduced to a man named Dankmar Adler. Adler was twelve
Speaker 1: years older than Louis Sullivan. He'd been born in Prussia
Speaker 1: on July third, eighteen forty four and moved to the
Speaker 1: United States at the age of ten. While he was
Speaker 1: still a teenager, Adler started studying architecture. In eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: he moved to Chicago found work as a draftsman, working
Speaker 1: under Augustus Bauer. Adler was in the middle a rapid
Speaker 1: rise in the architectural world when the US Civil War began.
Speaker 1: He served in the war and then immediately went back
Speaker 1: to Chicago when it ended, once again with Bauer. Initially,
Speaker 1: although he worked for several other firms as well, He
Speaker 1: started a firm with Edward Berling in eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy nine, Sullivan started working for Adler's office.
Speaker 1: This was the same year that Adler famously designed Chicago's
Speaker 1: Central Music Hall, which established many of the standards of
Speaker 1: the music venues that followed. One reason this structure became
Speaker 1: the prototype of music halls around the city and then
Speaker 1: around the country was that Adler had carefully designed it
Speaker 1: to optimize the building's acoustics for musical performance. Any biography
Speaker 1: you see of Adler, they talk about how acoustics were
Speaker 1: like his area of expertise. The project was one that
Speaker 1: Adler undertook as an independent architect after he broke from
Speaker 1: his previous business partner, Edward Berling. After two years of
Speaker 1: work at the Adler firm and having hand designed some
Speaker 1: incredible ornamentation for various projects, Louis Sullivan was made partner
Speaker 1: and the firm's name was updated to Adler and Sullivan Architects.
Speaker 1: And at this point things really took off for both
Speaker 1: of them because they were a perfect combination. Adler had
Speaker 1: this deep understanding of things like acoustics and engineering, but
Speaker 1: he didn't have as much of a knack for the
Speaker 1: creative design aspects of the job, and that was where
Speaker 1: Sullivan really shown there's a reason Chicago had so many
Speaker 1: construction projects going on in the eighteen eighties. This was
Speaker 1: after the eighteen seventy one Chicago fire. So yes, that's
Speaker 1: the fire with the O'Leary cow mythology. The actual cause
Speaker 1: of the initial fire is not known, but after it
Speaker 1: started in the southwest quadrant of the city, it spread
Speaker 1: really rapidly thanks to hot, dry conditions. Over the course
Speaker 1: of a day and a half, it destroyed three and
Speaker 1: a half square miles of the city. An estimated one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people lost their homes. Several hundred people died
Speaker 1: after this tragedy. The city needed to rebuild a lot
Speaker 1: of infrastructure, residences, government, and commercial buildings simultaneously. It also
Speaker 1: expanded well beyond its pre fire footprints. So for architects
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties there was a steady stream of work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of Chicago history. You can look
Speaker 1: up around like that moment where they decide is the
Speaker 1: city doomed? No, We're just going to rebuild it, and
Speaker 1: they kind of take a very proactive approach to being
Speaker 1: as smart about building as they could. We will talk
Speaker 1: some about the work that Adler and Sullivan did in
Speaker 1: Chicago as well as other places after we first paused
Speaker 1: for a sponsor break. We talked before the break about
Speaker 1: why Chicago was such a good place to be an
Speaker 1: architect in the late nineteenth century. Additionally, there is a
Speaker 1: reason that Chicago is where the first skyscraper was built,
Speaker 1: although by modern standards we'd think of it as pretty tiny.
Speaker 1: It was just ten floors in less than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty feet tall. That was the Home Life Insurance
Speaker 1: building built by William L. Barn Jenny, who you may
Speaker 1: recall Sullivan worked for at one point. So Chicago is
Speaker 1: on the shore of Lake Michigan, and it is hemmed
Speaker 1: in by the Chicago River, and in the late nineteenth
Speaker 1: century it also had industrial yards that were kind of
Speaker 1: creating some barriers around the city that prevented sprawl. So
Speaker 1: where it couldn't build out, it very purposely built up,
Speaker 1: and Adler and Sullivan were in the right career and
Speaker 1: the right place at the right time to be part
Speaker 1: of this. While Adler and Sullivan worked on a wide
Speaker 1: variety of residential and commercial properties, one of their most
Speaker 1: well known projects is the Auditorium Building of Chicago that
Speaker 1: was started in eighteen eighty six and completed in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Leading up to this point, they'd worked on
Speaker 1: a number of music halls and theaters together, combining Adler's
Speaker 1: skills in acoustic engineering with Sullivan's talent for exquisite ornamentation.
Speaker 1: So a large scale project that included a performance space
Speaker 1: was exactly the kind of thing they were perfect for.
Speaker 1: This was a mixed use building project. It had to
Speaker 1: include obviously an auditorium with seating for four thousand, but
Speaker 1: also an office building and a four hundred room hotel.
Speaker 1: Ferdinand wife Peck was a lawyer in Chicago who was
Speaker 1: also community minded. He was on the city's Board of Education,
Speaker 1: and he was a founder of the Illinois Humane Society,
Speaker 1: and he was a strong supporter of the arts. And
Speaker 1: he spearheaded the Auditorium building project, which was intended to
Speaker 1: make cultural events like opera accessible to all of Chicago's citizens,
Speaker 1: regardless of socioeconomic status. The hotel element of this project
Speaker 1: had been added to the plan as a way to
Speaker 1: subsidize the cost of running the performance space. But this
Speaker 1: entire project was not just an issue of problem solving
Speaker 1: from an engineering and design standpoint. It was also an
Speaker 1: effort on the part of Chicago's business leaders to try
Speaker 1: to ease the tensions that had developed in the city
Speaker 1: as industrialization had created a very obvious separation between the
Speaker 1: wealthy and the poor who worked for them. They were
Speaker 1: hoping like, hey, we'll all come together and enjoy the
Speaker 1: arts and that might help smooth things out, which is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a I'll just be kind and say,
Speaker 1: idealistic way to look at the problem. For context, just
Speaker 1: so you understand how kind of fraught the situation was
Speaker 1: in Chicago. The Haymarket affair, which we have talked about
Speaker 1: on the show before, had taken place in May of
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six, just a couple months before this project started.
Speaker 1: This was at a time when the marshall Field Department Store,
Speaker 1: designed by HH Richardson, was being built near and that
Speaker 1: was inspirational for Sullivan in that it was not an
Speaker 1: overly done building. Richardson had opted to let the exterior
Speaker 1: stone be its own ornamentation instead of adding a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of additional pieces. For Sullivan, who wanted to break
Speaker 1: away from the traditional design that he had found so
Speaker 1: frustrating when studying in school, the marshall Field building was
Speaker 1: like a green light. While finishing the auditorium building, Adler
Speaker 1: and Sullivan moved their offices to the complex's tower, and
Speaker 1: there on the sixteenth floor, they had a full view
Speaker 1: of the city. This building looks solid and it is
Speaker 1: despite being built on a tricky base of unstable soil.
Speaker 1: Adler designed a really unique foundation for this structure, with
Speaker 1: multiple isolated peers that each hold up their own sections
Speaker 1: of the building's weight, and those peers kind of sank
Speaker 1: into position as a floating foundation. As the construction was
Speaker 1: carried out, A combination of wrought iron and cast iron
Speaker 1: support give the auditorium a degree of flexibility as well.
Speaker 1: Inside is one beautiful piece of ornamentation after another. There
Speaker 1: are luminous surfaces and intricacies just everywhere. There are mosaic floors,
Speaker 1: warm tones of marble, and gilded trims, and the theater
Speaker 1: was one of the first to have electric lighting illuminating it,
Speaker 1: so all those beautiful finishes gave off a warm and
Speaker 1: inviting glow. Even the plaster used for the interior walls
Speaker 1: was carefully selected for the way it helped amplify sound
Speaker 1: without distorting it, and it was specifically designed for fire safety,
Speaker 1: with egress passages built into all of these beautifully adorned features.
Speaker 1: Later in life, Louis wrote in the third person about
Speaker 1: the design of the auditorium, quote, Louis's heart went into
Speaker 1: this structure. It is old time now, but its tower
Speaker 1: holds its head in the air as a tower should,
Speaker 1: so sweet. Another significant relationship began during the work on
Speaker 1: the auditorium building. Frank Lloyd Wright joined the firm as
Speaker 1: Sullivan's apprentice, and he was hired because this was a
Speaker 1: huge project and Sullivan really needed some help in the design.
Speaker 1: Of the Auditorium. Wright understood his vision, so he came
Speaker 1: on as a draftsman. Soon he was the project's lead draftsman.
Speaker 1: The Auditorium Building was not Adler and Sullivan's sole project.
Speaker 1: Their firm took on a lot of others while this
Speaker 1: structure was being built. One of those was the Wainwright
Speaker 1: Building in Saint Louis. This project began in eighteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: and it's significant because it was the first building to
Speaker 1: successfully implement steel frame construction. It's a ten story building.
Speaker 1: The first two floors, which have a brown sandstone exterior,
Speaker 1: are emphasized visually over the upper floors. Floors three through
Speaker 1: nine have a brick exterior, and the tenth story has
Speaker 1: a more decorative outer finish, adorned with a scroll work
Speaker 1: of leaves and circular windows and an overhanging roof. While
Speaker 1: the Wainwright Building is often lauded as Sullivan's greatest technical achievement,
Speaker 1: we have to note that he did not originate the
Speaker 1: idea of using a steel frame to support a building.
Speaker 1: That goes back to his former employer William Labarn Jenny,
Speaker 1: who we already credited as having built the first skyscraper,
Speaker 1: but Sullivan innovated the idea by breaking away stylistically from
Speaker 1: the traditional architectural styles that it left other architects sort
Speaker 1: of stymied in terms of how they could add the
Speaker 1: height that a steel structure would enable to existing styles
Speaker 1: without creating a visual mess. It's kind of like, if
Speaker 1: you imagine suddenly something like Versailles getting taller and taller
Speaker 1: and taller, it would be very strange. And that's why
Speaker 1: Sullivan was like, but what if we just changed the style.
Speaker 1: Sullivan also designed a number of cemetery tombs in addition
Speaker 1: to buildings. Eliza Getty's tomb in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery is
Speaker 1: considered one of the most beautiful structure in the cemetery.
Speaker 1: Commissioned in eighteen ninety, it's a building that's solid and
Speaker 1: squared off, but also has a honeycomb design carved into it,
Speaker 1: so it references the natural living world while also providing
Speaker 1: a final resting place. It's sometimes considered the first example
Speaker 1: of Sullivan's entree into what came to be known as
Speaker 1: the Chicago School, which we'll talk about in a bit.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety one, work started on the Charley House
Speaker 1: that's a residence that feels very familiar when you look
Speaker 1: at it, if you know the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Speaker 1: And Wright worked a lot on the project, and during construction,
Speaker 1: Sullivan continued to show him the way that careful, beautiful
Speaker 1: ornamentation inspired by nature could elevate a building that was
Speaker 1: otherwise quite bold in its lines and materials. In eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, several significant things happened for Sullivan. First, there
Speaker 1: was the Columbian Exposition. A name we mentioned earlier was
Speaker 1: involved in the planning. Ferdinand Peck, who was vice president
Speaker 1: of the Expo, and Sullivan, had envisioned this world's fare
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to showcase the emerging US style of architecture.
Speaker 1: It didn't really play out as he hoped at all,
Speaker 1: though Louis wrote of the exposition quote, Chicago was ripe
Speaker 1: and ready for such an undertaking. It had required enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and the will. It won out in a contest between
Speaker 1: the cities. The prize was now in hand. It was
Speaker 1: to be the city's crowning glory. A superb site on
Speaker 1: the Lake adjoined the southern section of the city. This
Speaker 1: site was to be transformed and embellished by the magic
Speaker 1: of American prowess, particularly in architectural aspects, as to set
Speaker 1: forth the genius of the land in that great creative art.
Speaker 1: It was to be a dream city where one might
Speaker 1: revel in beauty. It was to be called the White
Speaker 1: City by the Lake. That location so out aside for
Speaker 1: the Expo was carved out specifically so tourists wouldn't see
Speaker 1: any of the less appealing parts of Chicago. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if you've lived in any city where a
Speaker 1: big international something has gone on, we've all seen this happen.
Speaker 1: When it came to planning the site for the expo,
Speaker 1: landscape architect Frederick law Olmsted, who has also come up
Speaker 1: on the show before, laid out the site. Architect John
Speaker 1: Root was the project's consulting architect and his partner, architect
Speaker 1: Daniel Hudson Burnham, was named chief of construction, and Burnham
Speaker 1: had the idea to invite ten of the most respected
Speaker 1: architects of the US to participate, five from the East
Speaker 1: and five from the West, suggesting that each contribute a design,
Speaker 1: and Sullivan was of course among them. The auditorium building
Speaker 1: in particular, had really put him on the map. Also
Speaker 1: included where William Labaron, Jenny Henry van Brunn, George b. Post,
Speaker 1: Robert Peabody, Charles McKim, and Richard Morris Hunt. The first
Speaker 1: meeting of all the architects took place in February eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, and they were all to bring their design
Speaker 1: ideas with them, and this was, to be clear, a
Speaker 1: really significant moment. It was kind of like the All
Speaker 1: Star Game of architecture, and it was recognized at the
Speaker 1: time as one of the most significant meeting of artists
Speaker 1: of all time. But John Root had died the month
Speaker 1: before the meeting unexpectedly, and he was not replaced. That
Speaker 1: was an incident that Sullivan would later describe as a
Speaker 1: quote shadow of a white cloud falling over the project.
Speaker 1: As the construction of the site was carried out and
Speaker 1: the expo opened, Sullivan was so disappointed by the whole
Speaker 1: thing he later wrote in his autobiography, quote, the damage
Speaker 1: wrought by the World's Fair will last for half a
Speaker 1: century from its date, if not longer. It has penetrated
Speaker 1: deep into the constitution of the American mind, affecting their
Speaker 1: lesions significant of dementia. He found the fervor for replicating
Speaker 1: Renaissance and classic architecture to be just a complete letdown
Speaker 1: on the part of his peers at a time when
Speaker 1: they could all be showing their originality, most of them
Speaker 1: had instead decided to go very traditional routes, except for Sullivan.
Speaker 1: He also described the people who had visited and then
Speaker 1: gone home to talk about the Expo as people who
Speaker 1: were carrying a contagion. He really felt that part of
Speaker 1: the creative responsibility of the architects was quote an elevation
Speaker 1: of the public taste. He really did not see that.
Speaker 1: At the Columbia Expo, the Beaux Art style was selected
Speaker 1: as the design style for the White City, with a
Speaker 1: court of honors surrounding his central water feature. But Adler
Speaker 1: and Sullivan as a firm, did not do that. Their
Speaker 1: transportation building, designed by Sullivan, featured color and original ornamentation
Speaker 1: and an entry known as the Golden Door, which featured
Speaker 1: concentric gold arcs that recessed with each successively smaller curve,
Speaker 1: kind of inviting someone to walk in. This building was
Speaker 1: a huge break from the rest of the buildings at
Speaker 1: the Expo, and it got a lot of attention a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Historically, of course, it got torn down
Speaker 1: because it was part of a temporary expo setup. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people have talked about how this was
Speaker 1: really an incredible achievement. But most people that visited the
Speaker 1: Expo and the White City talked about it for a
Speaker 1: long time, having been impressed and reassured by the other
Speaker 1: people's nods back to history and what felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: a stable part of global history that would carry them
Speaker 1: forward in a way where they had built on the
Speaker 1: work of others. So we'll take another little sponsor break
Speaker 1: and then come back to talk about Sullivan's later years,
Speaker 1: which were rather difficult. After the let down of the Expo,
Speaker 1: there was more difficulty for Louis Sullivan. The depression that
Speaker 1: followed the Panic of eighteen ninety three meant that all
Speaker 1: of the building projects that had been so abundant in
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties were no longer coming in, and the
Speaker 1: firm's resources really started drying up. Additionally, that style that
Speaker 1: had gained Sullivan so many accolades just a few years
Speaker 1: earlier was suddenly no longer in fashion. To add to that,
Speaker 1: Frank Lloyd Wright and Sullivan had a fight that severed
Speaker 1: their relationship. These two men had become very close. Wright
Speaker 1: was almost like a sun to Sullivan in eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: when Wright had moved to the Oak Park neighborhood of Chicago,
Speaker 1: Sullivan had become the mortgage holder of the property and
Speaker 1: the house where the younger draftsman was living, and after
Speaker 1: his own home had been built, Wright had started taking
Speaker 1: commissions to design and build other houses like it in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood as kind of a side hustle to get
Speaker 1: some extra money coming in. Sullivan found out about it
Speaker 1: all in eighteen ninety three and fired Right. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation about the ways the two men's
Speaker 1: relationship may have shifted over the years, with Right probably
Speaker 1: out and growing his willness to just acquiesce to Sullivan's
Speaker 1: every order as his own skill and knowledge grew. We'll
Speaker 1: never really know what passed between them, though they did reconcile,
Speaker 1: but not for about a decade and a half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, part of that initial deal of
Speaker 1: like will I will pay for a lot of this album,
Speaker 1: I'll help you financially meant that Frank Lader could build
Speaker 1: this really impressive, beautiful house because he had some financial leverage,
Speaker 1: and that that's what got it all and Sullivan kind
Speaker 1: of saw his other projects as like bootleg. Adler and
Speaker 1: Sullivan projects like basically going, Oh, I'm a draftsman with them,
Speaker 1: I'll put this house together. Didn't go over well, and
Speaker 1: then Dankmar Adler left Architecture. He decided to take a
Speaker 1: job with Crane Elevator in eighteen ninety five, which he needed.
Speaker 1: They were not making money and this caused a massive
Speaker 1: rift with Sullivan, who felt betrayed that his partner would
Speaker 1: just leave the firm. Sullivan seems like he was a
Speaker 1: grudge holder because even when Adler tried to come back
Speaker 1: to the firm just a few months later, Sullivan refused
Speaker 1: this was a really, really foolish decision. Throughout their partnership,
Speaker 1: Sullivan had often been the creative lead on projects, but
Speaker 1: Adler was sort of the glue that held everything together.
Speaker 1: Whereas Louis was mercurial and wanted to focus on art,
Speaker 1: Dankmar was steadfast. He was really good at project managing
Speaker 1: all of their contracts from design through to completion, while
Speaker 1: also incorporating his considerable technical expertise. He was excellent at
Speaker 1: the administrative side of the business. He was really good
Speaker 1: with people, whereas Sullivan was not. While Adler was perfectly
Speaker 1: able to set up a new office for himself and
Speaker 1: continued to work steadily in architecture. Sullivan struggled. It's kind
Speaker 1: of obvious that Sullivan had some interpersonal communication issues. His
Speaker 1: sharp breaks with two different collaborators, that being Adler and
Speaker 1: Wright in such a short time, that's a pretty good indicator.
Speaker 1: He was known to be arrogant and stubborn, and he
Speaker 1: lost out on jobs because of it. Additionally, it had
Speaker 1: largely been Adler's various contacts that had kept contracts coming
Speaker 1: in for them, and without that it just got harder
Speaker 1: and harder to drum up business. Sullivan did have some
Speaker 1: notable and successful commissions in the later stage of his career, though.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety six, the Garantee Building, designed by Sullivan
Speaker 1: was completed in Buffalo, New York. This is a structure
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting because from a distance it looks very
Speaker 1: modern even today. It was built in a very similar
Speaker 1: style to the Wainwright Building. But then when you see
Speaker 1: it more closely, you see that it is deeply ornamented
Speaker 1: terra cotta on the outside, and it's like, as you
Speaker 1: get closer, it feels like it grew right out of
Speaker 1: the earth. The Schlessinger and Mayor Department Store began construction
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine, and this project posed an interesting
Speaker 1: challenge for Sullivan, who had been focusing on buildings that
Speaker 1: at the time were considered skyscrapers. This construction needed more
Speaker 1: emphasis on the horizontal rather than vertical spread, and as
Speaker 1: he had done with his tall office buildings, Sullivan focused
Speaker 1: on the first two floors it's visually the most important,
Speaker 1: recognizing that these would be the ones people walking by
Speaker 1: would see the most. Because the building was intended for sales,
Speaker 1: it also meant that it needed to include wide windows
Speaker 1: that could be used for display, a contrast again to
Speaker 1: the usually taller than wider windows that were usually included
Speaker 1: in office buildings. In addition to being wider than taller,
Speaker 1: the windows on the first two floors were decorated with
Speaker 1: details that resembled picture frames. It was all designed to
Speaker 1: really appeal to passers by and invite them in. The
Speaker 1: whole building has beautiful botanical craftsmanship inside and out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of the motifs are so super pretty. Sullivan also
Speaker 1: got married in eighteen ninety nine to a woman from
Speaker 1: California named Margaret Davies hadabow. This marriage seems to have
Speaker 1: often caused historians and biographers to scratch their heads a
Speaker 1: little bit. It seems to have sort of sprung up
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, and it has grown even more confusing
Speaker 1: as people have tried to track down information about Margaret,
Speaker 1: who appears to have been pretty fast and loose with
Speaker 1: her own biographical details in her lifetime, often fibbing about
Speaker 1: her age and name. And this marriage is weird because
Speaker 1: it also took place at a time when Sullivan seemed
Speaker 1: to be pushing more and more people away, including his
Speaker 1: older brother Albert. Louis and Margaret separated in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: six after seven years of marriage. They never reconciled, and
Speaker 1: they were formally divorced in nineteen seventeen, likely precipitated by
Speaker 1: Margaret's desire to marry someone else. In the years between
Speaker 1: the separation and the divorce, Sullivan really hit hard times financially.
Speaker 1: He sold most of his personal belongings at auction in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine just to have some ready cash to
Speaker 1: get by. Also, in nineteen oh nine, Sullivan lost the
Speaker 1: one employee who seemed able to tolerate his sour temper.
Speaker 1: That was George Grant Elmsley, Scotland born. Elmsley had worked
Speaker 1: for Sullivan for twenty years at that point. It's possible
Speaker 1: that some of Sullivan's more ornamental work during that time
Speaker 1: was really George's doing, while Elmsley was hired away by
Speaker 1: another of Louis Sullivan's former employees. This has to have
Speaker 1: been a blow. The next several years were dotted with
Speaker 1: a handful of projects that were much smaller in scale
Speaker 1: than the ones that Sullivan had become known for. Mostly
Speaker 1: he designed banks, though one of the earliest of these,
Speaker 1: the National Farmers Bank in Minnesota, has been speculated to
Speaker 1: perhaps have even been Elsley's design, but it definitely has
Speaker 1: the spirit of Sullivan's style. These bank projects, which are
Speaker 1: quite beautiful, were nicknamed the Jewel Boxes. The work on these,
Speaker 1: as well as the Schlessinger and Mayer building, is often
Speaker 1: described as kind of the most unrestrained of Sullivan's life.
Speaker 1: But while his peers from the Expo were being hired
Speaker 1: to build huge project after huge project based on the
Speaker 1: classicist style they had embraced and showcased there in Chicago,
Speaker 1: Sullivan's projects remained small. Throughout all of his financial hardships.
Speaker 1: Sullivan had remained in his offices in the Auditorium building tower,
Speaker 1: but as the nineteen teens were on, it became impossible
Speaker 1: to keep this space first team into a small office
Speaker 1: near the ground floor that lasted less than two years,
Speaker 1: though in nineteen twenty he had to close up his
Speaker 1: offices for good. Often he worked out of a single
Speaker 1: room where he lived sitting at his desk. He often
Speaker 1: had to ask for financial help from his friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he seems like he lived in a variety of places
Speaker 1: there towards the end of his life. For sometimes it
Speaker 1: would be a hotel. Sometimes a friend would put him up,
Speaker 1: So he was moving around a lot. But in his
Speaker 1: final years, Louis took on two projects. He wrote his
Speaker 1: autobiography and he wrote a book on architectural ornamentation. And
Speaker 1: these books were actually commissioned by the American Institute of
Speaker 1: Architects in exchange for a stipend. I feel like probably
Speaker 1: a lot of his colleagues were like, we have to
Speaker 1: figure out some way to help him, and also like
Speaker 1: it would be very beneficial to have his thoughts on
Speaker 1: these matters written down. His autobiography, titled An Autobiography of
Speaker 1: an idea, which we've quoted several times here, is written,
Speaker 1: as we said, in the third person. It's really a
Speaker 1: pretty delightful read, particularly the sections describing his childhood. But
Speaker 1: he is also pretty venomous when writing about his colleagues
Speaker 1: in the architectural world in the ways that he felt
Speaker 1: like they sold out. His treatise, titled A System of
Speaker 1: Architectural Ornament, features twenty studies which he hand drew notating
Speaker 1: how he created original ornamental designs. But these walkthroughs of
Speaker 1: design ideas aren't just ornament. They really offer a guide
Speaker 1: map to creative thinking. Sullivan died at the age of
Speaker 1: sixty eight, shortly after having seen the first copies of
Speaker 1: his book. He was laid to rest in the Graceland
Speaker 1: Cemetery near the decorative tombs that he designed, although his
Speaker 1: own grave was unadorned. Although he could be a difficult
Speaker 1: figure even in his lifetime, Sullivan's contemporaries recognized really what
Speaker 1: an extraordinary talent he was. His ideology was that a
Speaker 1: structure's form should not hide its purpose, but be a
Speaker 1: parent about it, something that wouldn't find true footing until
Speaker 1: decades after he died. This concept of what he called
Speaker 1: honest architecture may have been at odds with trends in
Speaker 1: his later life, but it also cemented him as a
Speaker 1: singular voice in cultural style in the US. Many of
Speaker 1: the buildings Sullivan designed, including ones that we've talked about today,
Speaker 1: are now recognized as historically significant. Today. Sullivan is grouped
Speaker 1: in with William Laban, Jenny his partner Adler, John Root,
Speaker 1: and Daniel Burnham under the umbrella term the Chicago School
Speaker 1: or the First Chicago School. This grouping recognizes the innovation
Speaker 1: that these men spearheaded in developing ways that construction and
Speaker 1: design could carry upward, creating the first skyscrapers, and setting
Speaker 1: the foundation of architectural design in the United States. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite passages in Sullivan's autobiography really spoke to
Speaker 1: me as a representation of who Louis Sullivan was and
Speaker 1: how he perceived the world. This is not a particularly
Speaker 1: important passage. It's not one that comes up a lot
Speaker 1: when you see documentaries or read articles about him. It's
Speaker 1: just a moment where he talks about the architect as
Speaker 1: a problem solver, and I really loved it. So he
Speaker 1: wrote quote as a rule inventions which are truly solutions
Speaker 1: are not arrived at quickly. They may seem to appear suddenly,
Speaker 1: but the groundwork has usually been long and preparing. It
Speaker 1: is of the essence of this philosophy that man's needs
Speaker 1: are balanced by his powers. That as the needs increase,
Speaker 1: the powers increase. That is the one reason why they
Speaker 1: are herein called powers kind of love that. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're dreaming it, it's because you know that some part
Speaker 1: of it is a solvable problem. So that is the
Speaker 1: sometimes difficult, but always kind of inspiring Louis Sullivan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you gonna read the listener mail? I am. I
Speaker 1: don't know why this made me laugh. Well, I do
Speaker 1: no part of it, but this is from our listener Sean,
Speaker 1: and he writes, good afternoon, Holly and Tracy. I just
Speaker 1: finished the April fourteenth Behind the Scenes, in which Holly
Speaker 1: mentioned someone touching tapestries in the Vatican. I cannot recall
Speaker 1: which of you lives in Atlanta. I'm pretty sure it's Holly.
Speaker 1: You are correct, Pretty sure you'll know what I'm referencing.
Speaker 1: Years ago, when my daughter was three. She's in her
Speaker 1: first year of college now. My ex wife and ex
Speaker 1: in laws took my daughter and son to an art
Speaker 1: museum in or around Atlanta, there was a globe shaped
Speaker 1: art installation hanging from the ceiling at the exact eye
Speaker 1: level of a three year old, and yep, before we
Speaker 1: could stop her, to our utter mortification, my daughter went
Speaker 1: up and slapped the globe, which started to swing. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, we hurried out with the docins glaring the
Speaker 1: whole way. To the best of my knowledge, no permanent
Speaker 1: damage was done. As my own aside, I will say,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would fault the three year
Speaker 1: old in situation, But the person in the Vatican was
Speaker 1: a full grown human who just dragged his hand like
Speaker 1: twenty feet down a beautiful tapestry. Sean continues again, I
Speaker 1: cannot recall which of you loves Bob's Burger's a personal favorite.
Speaker 1: That is also me. I also wanted to mention because
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody else has that. The show's episode
Speaker 1: fourteen of season six, called Harmoniums, featured a conflicted Tina
Speaker 1: in a Mister Fron musical about the deadly dangers of
Speaker 1: kissing because of mononucleosis. I was surprised neither you nor
Speaker 1: any listener, Maile, unless I missed one, mentioned this in
Speaker 1: reference to the September fourteenth, twenty twenty two episode on
Speaker 1: Imagen Recton's Kiss not campaign. As the episode seems retrospectively
Speaker 1: to be drawn straight from history. I'm surprised I didn't
Speaker 1: think of that either, because I'm pretty obsessive about Bob's Burgers.
Speaker 1: Didn't even come to me. That is a very funny episode, though,
Speaker 1: if anybody would like an entree into Bob's Burger's. Anyway,
Speaker 1: your podcast is when I make sure to keep up
Speaker 1: with regularly. Though I despair of ever listening to all
Speaker 1: the bad catalog, You're always a joy to listen to,
Speaker 1: fair and honest and dense with information, a future I adore.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all your hard work. Then there are
Speaker 1: pet pictures, Chip under the Christmas tree, Belle staring at
Speaker 1: the camera, and Max on our twin granddaughter's pillow. Not
Speaker 1: pictured are the turtles and the bees. These are very
Speaker 1: very cute little fluffs that look like they were made
Speaker 1: in a factory. They're so cute, adorable, adorable. I will say,
Speaker 1: while we admire and respect the commitment for people who
Speaker 1: do choose to listen to our whole entire back catalog,
Speaker 1: it is not a requirement. No, I would be daunted.
Speaker 1: I would say not even an encouragement because if you
Speaker 1: go back to the very beginning ones, like, they're a
Speaker 1: totally different style and scope from what we are now.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks on there who are wonderful colleagues
Speaker 1: who we loved and enjoyed working with, but like they
Speaker 1: haven't been involved in the show in years. So especially
Speaker 1: when people start with like episode one as the first
Speaker 1: thing they listen to, I'm like, it's a whole difference.
Speaker 1: It's not can give you idea of what you're about
Speaker 1: to get? Yeah, yeah, yeah, But I mean if you
Speaker 1: just want to go ahead, if you want to go
Speaker 1: for it, but yet feel no pressure to do so
Speaker 1: at all. If you would like to write to us,
Speaker 1: no pressure there either, But it's super easy to do.
Speaker 1: You can do that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media as Missed
Speaker 1: in History, and if you haven't subscribed, you can do
Speaker 1: that on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.