Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was 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 Henry Hobson Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright, Sullivan is one of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth3 September 1856
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
The feudal concept of self-preservation is poisoned at the core by the virulent assumption of master and man, of potentate and slave, of external and internal suppression of the life urge of the only one - of its faith in human sacrifice as a means of salvation.
It is the mass dream of inverted self, populous with fears overt and secret, that forms the continuous but gossamer thread upon which are strung as phantom beads all civilizations from the remotest past of record to that of the present day and hour.
If with open mind one reads and observes industriously and long; if in so doing one covers a wide field and so covering reflects in terms of realism, he is likely, soon or late, to be brought to a sudden consciousness that Man is an unknown quantity and his existence unsuspected.
It was the spirit animating the mass and flowing from it, and it expressed the individuality of the building.
Alas, the world has never known a sound social fabric, a fabric sound and clean to the core and kindly. For it has ever turned its back on Man.
Happiness and depression cannot blossom on the same vine. Some people affirm their woes and beg for sympathy. Others, unfortunately, cast gloom wherever they go. These poor souls were born sick and tired.
Implicit in true freedom of spirit lies a proud and virile will. Such glorious power of free will to choose, envisages beneficent social responsibility as manifest and welcome.
In the history of mankind there are recorded two great Inversions. The first, set forth by the Nazarene to the effect that love is a greater power and more real than vengeance. The second proclaimed the earth to be a sphere revolving in its course around the sun. These affirmations were made in the face of all evidence sacred to the contrary.
Form follows function.
An architect, to be a true exponent of his time, must possess first, last and always the sympathy, the intuition of a poet... this is the one real, vital principle that survives through all places and all times.
Man shall find his anchorage in self-recognition.
Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant.