Later work of Louis Sullivan

The economic depression that began in 1893 severely curtailed commissions. With a lucrative offer as designer and agent for the Crane Elevator Company, Adler reluctantly decided in 1895 to withdraw from architecture. Sullivan reacted badly, accusing Adler of disloyalty. Adler’s new job proved unsatisfactory, and he decided to return to architecture six months later. His offer to reestablish the firm was unwisely refused by Sullivan, and Adler opened his own office in another part of the Auditorium Building, where he practiced until his death in 1900.

In 1895, proud and optimistic, Sullivan began to practice by himself. His temperament was unsuited, however, to the handling of all of the phases of architectural practice. New work was slow in coming. George Grant Elmslie, whom he had hired in 1889 at age 18, remained a loyal employee. Nevertheless, he was aware of Sullivan’s shortcomings:

He could be arrogant and unnecessarily decisive…prone to give advice where not needed, to good clients…he lost many jobs because he would not compromise his ideals, nor play fast and loose with vital conceptions of what was fitting for the purpose intended.

A simple tabulation of Sullivan’s 20 commissions during the last 30 years of his life indicates the near collapse of his practice.

Among the few major commissions Sullivan received was the one for the Schlesinger & Mayer department store in Chicago, occupied by Carson Pirie Scott & Co. from 1904 to 2007. Two connecting units were built between 1899 and 1904, and a third unit was added in 1906 by Daniel H. Burnham and Co., largely following Sullivan’s original design. In contrast to the vertical emphasis of the Wainwright and Guaranty buildings, which are offices, the design for the department store stresses the horizontal. Particularly notable are the rectangular “Chicago windows”—each a large fixed pane flanked by movable sash windows. The elegant simplicity of the upper floors is in contrast to the lavish decoration of the first two, which have windows that were treated as display windows, with the architectural decoration forming rich picture frames. This cast-iron ornament is based on a combination of geometric and stylized floral forms. Much of it is thought to have been designed by Elmslie, in emulation of Sullivan’s style. In any case, the decoration of the building, particularly the ornament over the main entrance, represents the height of Sullivan’s achievement as a designer of architectural ornamentation. Only the decorative panels that once surrounded Sullivan’s Gage Building in Chicago were a match for its decorative exuberance.

Greater plastic richness and a heightened subjectivity are apparent in Sullivan’s work after 1895. His 12-story Bayard (now Condict) Building in New York City was embellished with molded terra-cotta and cast-iron ornament.

As his flourishing years with Adler became a provoking memory, Sullivan grew lonely and difficult. He became estranged from his brother Albert, who was a successful official of the Illinois Central Railroad and who also lived in Chicago. The middle-aged Sullivan became something of a recluse, seeking solace in writing and in visits to his winter cottage in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. His marriage in 1899 to Margaret Davies Hattabough did little to bring lasting happiness; they were separated in 1906 and divorced in 1917 without having had children. With declining income, Sullivan moved to progressively cheaper hotels in an effort to economize. By 1909 a lack of commissions reduced him to desperate straits; he was forced to sell his library and household effects. Perhaps an equal loss was the departure that year of Elmslie, his assistant for 20 years, who went to join forces in Minneapolis with William Gray Purcell, an architect who had worked briefly for Sullivan in 1903.

Particularly noteworthy projects undertaken in his last years were seven banks in a number of small Midwestern towns, beginning with the National Farmers’ (now Security) Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota. Sullivan’s work habits had become erratic, and it is known that this particular design is primarily the work of Elmslie. It has a simple cube form pierced on two sides by large arched windows. Its walls of red sandstone and brick, which convey a sense of security, are ornamented by bands of coloured mosaic and blue-green glazed terra-cotta. The balance between simple form and decoration in this structure has been much admired. The square interior was designed in harmony with the exterior: semicircular murals appear opposite the two arched windows.

Another attractive bank design is that of the Merchants’ National Bank in Grinnell, Iowa (1914). Like the Owatonna bank, it has a relatively austere form, relieved by imaginative, intricate ornament. The facade is embellished with a spectacular decorative frame for the circular window above the entrance. Sullivan’s last commission was the facade for the Krause Music Store in Chicago (1922).

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Sullivan had to abandon his Auditorium tower suite in 1918 for a small second-floor office. In 1920 he had no office at all and was reduced to living in one bedroom, being supported by friends. His workplace came to be a desk in the office of a Chicago terra-cotta company, where he was able to complete two significant projects: the writing of his Autobiography and the completion of 19 plates for A System of Architectural Ornament According with a Philosophy of Man’s Powers (1924). He died a week after he had received published copies of these two works. Sullivan was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, next to the graves of his parents and within sight of the Getty and Ryerson tombs, which he had designed. Later, a modest stone was erected by friends. Much later, in 1946, the American Institute of Architects awarded him its Gold Medal.