Designer Biography

Louis Sullivan

Born: 1856

Died: 1924

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Sullivan studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before going to Philadelphia, where he worked in the office of Frank Furness (1839-1912). In 1874 he went to Paris, where he spent some time at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, From 1875 he was in Chicago, where his subsequent career was to be based, forming a partnership with Dankmar Adler in 1881. In his early buildings his grounding in English Reformed Gothic is apparent. He evolved a distinctive ornamental style based on organic forms. Throughout his career Sullivan wrote a number of treatises on contemporary architecture. From 1888 Frank Lloyd Wright worked for Sullivan, imbibing the mixture of French Beaux-Arts and English influence (through Furness) that had formed Sullivan himself. G.G. Elmslie, (1871-1952) a contemporary of Wright's in the Chicago architect J. L. Silsbee's office, joined Sullivan & Adler in 1889 as a draughtsman and designed furniture, stained glass and textiles in a style derived from Sullivan.