Louis Sullivan; Creating a New American Architecture
James Caulfield (Photographer) San Francisco: Pomegranate Communications, Inc., 2011. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Format is approximately 10.25 inches by 9 inches. 192 pages. Illustrations (many in color). Select Bibliography. Index of Buildings. Contents are: Preface; Acknowledgments; A Life in Architecture; Housing a Growing Chicago; Reaching for the Sky; The Wonder of the Age; Temples to Got, Temples of Commerce; Decline and Triumph. After retiring from a long career in public relations, journalism and publishing, Patrick F. Cannon decided to build upon a long interest in architecture to write about Chicago area architects and architecture. Since the publication of his first book, Hometown Architect: The Complete Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park and River Forest, in 2006, he has since published four more books in collaboration with one of Chicago's preeminent architectural photographer, James Caulfield. Their most recent book, The Space Within: Insider Great Chicago Buildings was awarded the Gold Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. James Caulfield has been a professional photographer for more than 30 years. His interest in architectural subjects grew out of his efforts restoring a Fromann & Jebsen designed bank in Chicago, a mid-century modern home in Glencoe by the noted architects, Keck & Keck, and his repurposing of several industrial buildings in Chicago as studios. He met architectural writer Patrick F. Cannon in 2004, with whom he collaborated on five books. James is currently at work on a new book project with Pat Cannon, tentatively entitled ‘A Living History’ which will attempt to showcase the nearly 200 year history of Chicago’s residential architecture. On the eve of the twentieth century, Chicago was rapidly outgrowing its borders. Architect Louis Henry Sullivan (American, 1856-1924) answered the demand for more office space, theaters, department stores, and financial centers by pioneering what would become an essential model for city life, the skyscraper. Blending Art Nouveau complexity with geometric elegance, Sullivan's tall buildings included Chicago's Auditorium Building, the largest building in the world when it was completed in 1889. Sullivan's design was heralded as the Wonder of the Age, a title equally fitting for the architect himself. Louis Sullivan's designs stand today as leading exemplars of Chicago School architecture. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, a former assistant to Sullivan, would later refer to him as his lieber Meister, or beloved master. Sullivan brought to his practice a conviction that ornamentation should arise naturally from a building's overall design, restating, in a large or small way, themes expressed in the structure as a whole. Having spent much of his career in a late Victorian world that bristled with busy, fussy ornament for ornament's sake, Sullivan refuted the fashionable style with the now famous dictum Form follows function. This break from tradition is perhaps most evident in Sullivan's strides to reimagine the commercial space, from America's earliest skyscrapers to the small-town banks that populated the architect's commissions in the second half of his career. In Louis Sullivan: Creating a New American Architecture, nearly two hundred photographs with descriptive captions document Sullivan's genius for modern design. Patrick Cannon introduces each chapter with key biographical information and discusses the influences that shaped Sullivan's illustrious career. Rare historical photographs chronicle those buildings that, sadly, have since been destroyed, while James Caulfield's contemporary photography captures Sullivan's existing Chicago buildings and many other structures in eastern and midwestern cities that are of equal importance in the architect's oeuvre. Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture". The phrase "form follows function" is attributed to him. In 1944, Sullivan was the second architect to posthumously receive the AIA Gold Medal. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Louis Sullivan, Prairie School, Chicago School, Frank Lloyd Wright, Skyscraper, Auditorium Building, Architectural Modernism, Form Follows Function, Building, Design, Construction, Art Nouveau, Pictorial Works
ISBN: 9780764957710
[Book #85117]
Price: $85.00