louis sullivan building first skyscraper chicago

#Louis sullivan building first skyscraper chicago full

The images corresponded with the treasure trove of artifacts that ranged from ornamental pieces to architectural renderings.

#Louis sullivan building first skyscraper chicago full

The two-story height of the Cultural Center was used to full effect with enormous photographs of his buildings towering over visitors.

The 2010 show brought Louis Sullivan’s architectural work to life. The exhibit and books might never have come into existence without the combination of Nickel’s dedication, Samuelson’s passion (his interest in Sullivan began at the age of 7), and Vinci’s architectural expertise. īoth Samuelson and Vinci knew and worked with architectural photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel, who tried to document and salvage as many Sullivan buildings as he could before he was killed inside the half-demolished Chicago Stock Exchange in 1972. The book also coincides with a new show on the architect’s work, “Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright,” at Wrightwood 659, and the release of another related book: Reconstructing the Garrick: Adler & Sullivan’s Lost Masterpiece by John Vinci. More than a decade after the close of an exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center, a book of the same name - Louis Sullivan’s Idea, by its curators Tim Samuelson and Chris Ware - is being released by the University of Minnesota Press. Luckily, historians continue to provide us with a look into the architect’s work. Only 21 Louis Sullivan-designed structures still exist in Chicago - a tragedy for an architect who has been called the “father of modernism” and served as a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and others associated with the Prairie School.