Sullivan Square (1958) Legacy of the Braveheart

Ode to my Grandfather, Dennis Joseph White


by Dr.Bobbi Anne White aka/vrajavala goundar



"Those lips that love's own hand did make"

William Shakespeare


copyright,all rights reserved by the author/National Writers' Union


more poetry
professional site
free speech

Reference to Louis Sullivan,from S. Reading, Mass. and related to my great-grandmother, Johanna Sullivan. Louis Sullivan was a famous architect, who designed the Transportation Building(Columbian World Fair, Chicago, 1893), had a student by the name of Frank Lloyd Wright, and wrote a book:The Autobiography of an Idea, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1956. Even though the building resembles Sullivan Square of Somerville, Mass, a fomous MTA building, that was really named after a governor.MIT, the school, sullivan attended is also within sight of "Sullivan Square"


“The explosion of color found inside the Horticultural Building was echoed in the exterior of Adler & Sullivan's Transportation Building. The main hall of Louis Sullivan's work covered over five acres, and true to his innovative style, bucked the plan of classicality found in the rest of the 14 "great buildings." Allegorical figures and a polychromatic paint scheme covered the exterior, in sharp contrast to the cool whiteness of the Court of Honor just yards to the west. Sullivan, along with a junior member of his firm, Frank Lloyd Wright, delighted Fairgoers with their "golden doorway," the grand gilded and arched entrance with high-relief friezes on a transportation theme. For a public fascinated with new forms of transportation, the building was quite popular inside as well. Railroad relics, including "John Bull," the first locomotive in the United States, were displayed next to models of English warships, a full-scale reproduction of an ocean liner, bicycle companies with the latest models for sale, and a chariot from the Etruscan museum in Florence.”
"Meanwhile the virus of the World's Fair, after a period of incubation ... began to show unmistakable signs of the nature of the contagion. There came a violent outbreak of the Classic and the Renaissance in the East, which slowly spread Westward, contaminating all that it touched, both at its source and outward.... By the time the market had been saturated, all sense of reality was gone. In its place, had come deep seated illusions, hallucinations, absence of pupillary reaction to light, absence of knee-reaction-symptoms all of progressive cerebral meningitis; the blanketing of the brain. Thus Architecture died in the land of the free and the home of the brave.... The damage wrought by the World's Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not longer."
Louis Sullivan Autobiography of An Idea 1956 · Transportation Building The Transportation Building was 960 feet long and 256 feet wide, with a central cupola 165 feet high. The structure was designed by Louis Sullivan and was best known for its Golden Door . The door was a large entryway that was a series of receding arches, highly decorated, and overlaid with gold leaf. The decoration was done by sculptor John J. Boyle. In contrast to the White City, the Transportation Building was polychromatically painted, with reds, oranges, and yellows predominating. The building cost $370,000. Louis Sullivan: The Growth of an Idea From the Auditorium to the Bank Copyright 1993 - Gerry Boudreaux "...The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and true -- is he who shall create poems in stone..."1
Louis Sullivan spent his life pushing for an Architecture that truly represented the people in the present, not one that copied the past. To this end he put as much effort in his writings as he did in his buildings. "Form should follow function..." was and is the Idea that he sought to teach, even to his young draftsman Frank Lloyd Wright. Perhaps the proper way to state this idea is that function should define form. This idea seems to gradually grow, as shown in his works, as time passed.
For Sullivan, "Ornament and structure were integral; their subtle rhythm sustained a high emotional tension, yet produced a sense of serenity. But the building's identity resided in the ornament. It was the spirit animating the mass and flowing from it, and it expressed the individuality of the building. Nurtured by the artists sympathy with life, the ornament spoke: it was the voice of the artist and the building -- indeed they were one, the building a 'stock personality' and the architect an interpreter and prophet."2 In this paper I will concentrate on two of the buildings that Louis Sullivan worked on. The first, the Chicago Auditorium, on which he worked with Dankmar Adler, and also on one of his later projects, the National Farmers Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota. I will attempt to show the growth of his ideas into his buildings. I chose these buildings because of the passage of time between them, and also because Sullivan was being constrained in his design of the Auditorium, but was allowed to express his ideas in the design of the bank. Louis Sullivan was born in Boston, in 1856 to an Irish Father and a Swiss-French mother. He grew up with his grandparents in South Reading, Mass. At 16 he entered MIT and studied under William Ware, who had opened the first Architecture school in the U.S. there seven years previously.3 There under Eugene Letang, a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Sullivan learned the styles being taught at the Ecole. He felt that the "Orders" were "Fairy tales of the long ago."4 He left MIT at the end of the year, and after visiting his parents in the recently burned Chicago, traveled to Paris and entered the Ecole, and joined the atelier Vaudremer. Apparently, after only one project, Sullivan quit the Ecole. He then traveled Europe before returning to Chicago six months after his departure.5 For the next few years, he spent much time under the tutoring of John Edelmann, an architect who ultimately introduced Louis to Dankmar Adler, who hired Louis to be a junior partner, then later promoted him to be full partner.6
It was in partnership that Sullivan and Adler were approached to design and build the Auditorium. The promoter of the auditorium, Ferdinand Peck, after an experimental two weeks of opera in a temporary building, was convinced that Chicago was ready for a permanent opera house. Adler was an engineer known for his acoustics experience, but Sullivan the designer was seen as too young by the promoter. Mr. Peck and his group had learned that H.H. Richardson had been approached by Marshall Field to design a wholesale building which led to more discomfort concerning Sullivan.7 Louis who was an admirer of Richardson, viewed the simple style that Richardson used in both the Field Museum and in the Marshall Field store as a statement rejecting the traditional Gothic architecture that was prevalent at the time.8
In spite of their misgivings, Louis decided to go ahead and start designing the Auditorium on his own, even though the job had not been awarded yet. The Peck group asked Richardson to submit a design for the Auditorium, but he died before the Field store was completed.9 Adler and Sullivan spent a year working on the plans for the Auditorium, in their spare time, completing more than twelve other projects at the same time. The original design that was submitted to Peck was "a nine story building with a high pitched roof, a series of turrets and a pyramid shaped tower that was topped by a cupola. Auditorium entrances were set off by massive arches, and the arch effect was repeated, framing each vertical row of windows."10 This first design is described as "a fractious mass, lacked any consistency of motif, rhythm, scale or structure; Its squat tower failed in proportions, and picturesque pips cropped out all over the bulky mass"11 This design was much too ornate for the Peck group, who requested that Sullivan strip the building down more like Richardson's designs.12 This design showed that even though Sullivan admired the cleanliness of Richardson's work, he still felt that the building must have ornamentation, but his ideas on ornamentation had not yet matured.13
The second design was much more contemporary. He had removed the pointed roofs, squared up and enlarged the tower. He also added another floor to the main building, bringing it up to ten stories. This plan still did not meet with the desires of the Peck group, who by now wanted to bring in another architect as a consultant.14
It is not clear now how it came about, but the consultant that was ultimately chosen was William Ware, Sullivan's old teacher from MIT. Sullivan and Adler were pleased when Ware expressed his overall approval of the design, but he did suggest some minor modifications to the design. The main modification was to the tower, which Ware thought much to squat. After Sullivan made the changes, Ware submitted his report to the Peck group he stated his approval of the design. Upon questioning by Peck, Ware stated that "if I had arrived at something similar to what Mr. Adler and Mr. Sullivan have created, I think I would have considered it...the most inspired achievement of my life."15 The interior of the Auditorium required hundreds of drawings. Sullivan was incorporating 'brick, terra-cotta, marble, fine wood, gilding, glass mosaic, and tinted window glass.'16 It was around this time (1888) that a young draftsman arrived at Adler and Sullivan looking for a job. This young man's name was Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, who for the rest of his life called Sullivan the leiber-meister, or Master, became the masters "pencil"17 Wright easily grasped Sullivan's style of drawing and made nearly all of the ornamentation sketches for the Auditorium. It did not take long for Wright to make his way up to foreman of designers, and supervisor of thirty draftsmen.18 Satisfied that Wright knew what he wanted as far as the building detailing, Sullivan went to work on the theater itself. He had to modify the design that Adler had used in other theaters to allow the size of the theater to be changed by moving panels and closing off the balconies, without losing the acoustic qualities of the original room. This feature is one of the outstanding aspects of the Auditorium.19 In regard to his decorative designs, Sullivan took the time, and had the imagination, to notice what even reflected light would do in the auditorium. He once pointed out to his staff: "You will note, in this shaded area, that the reflected light from below reverses all of the shadows."20
Adler, meanwhile was working on solving the engineering problems that Sullivan's designs presented. One of the main problems was in the fact that there were both interior and exterior load-bearing walls, and a tower that rose seven stories above the rest of the building. In order to build the tower, the foundation under it had to bear much more weight than the foundations of the rest of the auditorium. In order to ensure that the reinforced foundation under the tower and the regular foundation under the rest of the building settled at the same rate, Adler had to add load to the base of the tower during construction so that it would be bearing the full load it should ever carry at the point that the walls of the auditorium were finished. This extra load had to be removed as the tower was added to keep the load constant. Adler also installed what was then a state-of-the-art hydraulic system to allow the stage and props to be re-arranged as needed. This system would even allow the stage to be set up as bleachers for additional seating for 500 if needed.21 Throughout the whole of the Auditorium, the detail work was amazing. The main banquet hall, on the tenth floor, was in the shape of a half cylinder, opening on Lake Michigan. The hotel bar was very long, with carved wood pillars. The whole building was filled with terra-cotta panels and Italian hand laid tile designs.22
The Auditorium took over three years to build, but the end result was distinctly American, not a copy of Old World designs. It does seem to copy Richardson's Field's store facade though on a larger scale.23 Sullivan felt that the "gradual growth on native ground" of architecture would lead to the next generation of design. He felt that "Our art is for the day" and was the answer to popular feelings.24 This building, the most expensive and tallest in Chicago at the time, was the heaviest in the world. It contained over eight million cubic feet of volume. It contained a 400 room hotel, 136 offices, and a 4200 seat theater. This was the largest permanent concert hall built at the time. It awed Chicago and inspired the rest of the country.25 Sullivan later wrote: " Louis's heart went into this structure. It is old-time now, but its tower holds its head in the air, as a tower should."26
The National Farmers Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota is another example of later work by Sullivan. It was completed in 1908. Sullivan received this commission in the later portion of his life, when he had fallen on hard times. Bank vice-president Carl Bennett had read one of Sullivan's essays and felt that the values expressed were what the bank wanted in the design of their building. What the bank wanted and what Sullivan wanted turned out to be the same.27 What Sullivan produced was a cube, 68 feet on a side, 40 feet high. It is connected to a two story office building that extends down the block. The design was different from anything else that he had built before. The building is built with red-brown sandstone, and brick, but the feature that catches the eye is the two 38 foot arched windows that face the two streets that border the building. Each of the windows has four symmetrical geometric patterns behind double plate glass to protect the building from the freezing winters. The facade of the building is surrounded by distinctly Sullivan terra-cotta, in colors of the crops the farmers produce. At each upper corner of the facade, Sullivan placed a huge steel ornament. The windows and terra-cotta projected a friendliness, yet the imposing walls projected security.28 It is noteworthy that in addition to the bank building proper, there is an office wing to the bank, that is a variation on the design, that blends in perfectly with the bank, yet is separate from it. "Together the bank and the office building indicate how Sullivan might have treated a whole town."29
The interior was at once imposing and quiet, as a bank should be, yet not overpowering to the farmer clientele. The decoration and lighting, both the natural, through the huge windows, and the artificial, from the artful chandeliers, designed by Sullivan and his partner, George Elmslie, who worked under Wright.30 The interior ornamentation is the combination of natural and geometric designs that Sullivan used everywhere. Even the clock, which is above the tellers' stations is incorporated in the overall design. Rather than have just a clock, the bank has a sculpture that fits neatly into the overall design. Sullivan, in a letter to Mr. Bennett, stated "I want a color symphony and I am pretty sure that I am going to get it. I want something with many shades of the strings, and the wood winds and the brass...There has never been in my entire career such and opportunity for a color tone poem as your bank interior plainly puts before me."31 In an article that was published after the completion of the bank, Mr. Bennett stated that his bank "Marked a new epoch in American architecture" 'and for the first time in American history, Sullivan had been able to fuse architecture, music, and poetry.'32 Bush-Brown, in his book states: " ...The bank has that organization which is possessed, and only rarely, by the greatest examples of architecture: It strikes its geometric silhouette from afar and constantly unfolds its theme until the closest inspection still reveals consonant shapes, textures, colors, and ornament."33
Sullivan seemed to find the canvas that he was looking for in the tiny town of Owatonna. He achieved something there that he would never match in his later buildings. Bennett also stated "The owners of the building feel that they have a true and lasting work of art -- a structure which, though built for business, will be as fresh and inspiring in its beauty one hundred years from now as it is today."34
Louis Sullivan died completely destitute unless one counts the friendship of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright visited Sullivan only three days before Sullivan's death. On that occasion, Sullivan gave the last, and probably the best, examples of his ornamentation drawings to his friend(Frank Lloyd Wright)