Awards

• Winner of <DIV>Honorable Mention, PSP Awards for Excellence in Professional/Scholarly Publishing, 2002.</DIV> 2002

Overview

"Sullivanesque offers a visual and historical tour of a unique but often overlooked facet of modern American architecture derived from Louis Sullivan.Highly regarded in architecture for inspiring the Chicago School and the Prairie School, Sullivan was an unwilling instigator of the method of facade composition--later influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, William Gray Purcell, and George G. Elmslie--that came to be known as Sullivanesque. Decorative enhancements with botanical and animal themes, Sullivan's distinctive ornamentation mitigated the hard geometries of the large buildings he designed, coinciding with his ""form follows function"" aesthetic.Sullivan's designs offered solutions to problems presented by new types and scales of buildings. Widely popular, they were also widely copied, and the style proliferated due to a number of Chicago-based interests, including the Radford Architectural Company and several decorative plaster and terra-cotta companies. Stock replicas of Sullivan's designs manufactured by the Midland Terra Cotta Company and others gave distinction and focus to utilitarian buildings in Chicago's commercial strips and other confined areas, such as the downtown districts of smaller towns. Mass-produced Sullivanesque terra cotta endured as a result of its combined economic and aesthetic appeal, blending the sophistication of high architectural art with the pragmatic functionality of building design.Masterfully framed by the author's photographs of Sullivanesque buildings in Chicago and throughout the Midwest, Ronald E. Schmitt's in-depth exploration of the Sullivanesque tells the story of its evolution from Sullivan's intellectual and aesthetic foundations to its place as a form of commercial vernacular. The book also includes an inventory of Sullivanesque buildings.Honorable Mention recipient of the 2002 PSP Awards for Excellence in Professional/Scholarly Publishing"

Full Product Details

9780252074646

Table of Contents

Reviews

Through elaborate text and photographs this book helps to define the distinct look of the urban Midwest by examining the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century aesthetic of the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan and his disciples and imitators. Schmitt traces the development of a commercial midwestern architectural and decorative style, at once solidly handsome and sprightly, that is embodied as much in the banks and stores of Wisconsin and Minnesota downtowns as in Chicago's celebrated Carson Pirie Scott and Auditorium buildings. Atlantic Monthly

Louis Sullivan, strangely enough, is still being discovered. As important as he was, most of the earlier books concentrated on the high points, the popular dramatic photos, and were less rigorously scholarly. Ronald E. Schmitt's documentation in breadth and depth is highly effective. The diaspora of Sullivan's work is finally being addressed. --Ben Weese, Weese Langley Weese Architects, Chicago This book is the first of its kind and fills a wide gap in our understanding of the architecture of the early twentieth century. It is time to recognize that Louis Sullivan had an even greater influence over a wider area than anyone previously realized. Not only has Ronald E. Schmitt written an interesting book, he has written an important one. --Wilbert R. Hasbrouck, architect and restoration consultant, Chicago Sullivanesque: Urban Architecture and Ornamentation is a beautifully written and illustrated book, offering a wide variety of new insights. It reveals the extent of Sullivan's influence on American architecture, one that reached far beyond his superb buildings... Effusive praise is due to the author for his wonderful addition to the steadily growing body of terra-cotta literature. --Susan Tunick, author of Terra- Cotta Skyline

Author Information

Ronald E. Schmitt is a professor emeritus in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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