Sullivan's City The Meaning of Ornament for Louis Sullivan

by Van Zanten, David; Robinson, Cervin

• ISBN13: 9780393730388
• ISBN10: 0393730387
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Among many books about the person and work of Louis Sullivan, this unusual volume explores the idea that Sullivan's ornament became increasingly central to his architectural enterprise as his career unfolded. It holds that he used ornament to articulate the masses of the skyscrapers he built at the peak of his career and to humanize them in an increasingly hostile cityscape. In his impoverished old age, when important commissions no longer came to him, fully developed and exquisite pencil drawings of ornament served as a surrogate for the great projects he was no longer able to carry out. Cervin Robinson's beautiful photographs of Sullivan's work, supplemented by historical photographs of buildings no longer standing and reproductions of plates from Sullivan's crowning achievement, his book of drawings System of Architectural Ornament , illustrate the text by art historian David Van Zanten.

Author Biography

David Van Zanten teaches the history of architecture and urbanism in the Art History department of Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(14)
Entry on the Stage: 1881-1890	15	(30)
The New World of the 1890s: The Columbian Exposition and the Schiller Building	45	(28)
Form and Reform c. 1900 Sullivanism as a Design System	73	(20)
Why Sullivan's Houses are as Important as His Banks c. 1910	93	(40)
Finis, 1922-1924	133	(20)
Conclusion	153	(2)
Notes	155	(12)
Bibliography	167	(8)
Index	175