Golden in Chicago

Carson, Pirie & Scott

Standing at the important address of 1 South State Street, the Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Building is not unlike Sullivan himself -- providential and a mass of contradictions. Modern and ancient, urban and reflecting nature, massive and delicately intimate, comforting and foreboding.Built in 1899 as the Schlesinger & Mayer Department Store, it housed Carson, Pirie & Scott until 2006 when the store closed. Word is that it will now become a Target, Chicago's first in The Loop.
The building has been stripped of much of its original detail through the years, but an amazing amount has survived.
Now referred to as the Sullivan Center, it has managed to survive various attempts at "modernization" or demolition.
Perhaps my favorite detail is the LHS -- Louis Henri Sullivan -- signature.

And I went to Chicago...

And I had a glorious time. My primary purpose was to attend the Basenji Rescue and Transport (BRAT) convention which was very helpful in building my skills to be a better foster for Audrey and Shaka
However, my greater purpose was to do some architecture tours -- Wright (meh), Burnham (okay) and Sullivan (the master). The Sullivan tour was clearly the highlight. Where to begin?
Why not at the end, at his last building on Lincoln Avenue, the Krause Music Store.
Built in 1922, two years before his death, it is relatively small. Barely 20 feet wide and two stories -- a shop on the lower level and a residence above.
The man who invented the American skyscraper ended his career in poverty, not able
to pay his AIA dues and living in a small rented room, though he created the nation's greatest structures of the late 19th century.
If the Auditorium Theater and Tower are a symphony, this one is a jewel box/chamber piece like the incredible banks he designed during the same period.
These photos are but the tip of the iceberg, and I will be posting many others. But they are like an homage to the master, who would face a sad end but went out with a blaze of glory with thei building.

Mr. Sullivan Regards His Own City

Few things thrilled Louis Sullivan more than strolling his own city and regarding the buildings that he had created. These massive, muscular fingers reaching towards the sky had been created by his one virile yet elegant digits.
Sometimes it seemed Sullivan got as much pleasure from observing these enormous poems of granite, glass and steel reaching for the heavens, noticing how the light of late afternoon bathed them in warm hues as they looked down on the unimaginative flatness of the prairie.
What had not been among Sullivan's strengths was ventilation. And his top floor office could be deadly overheated in the late summer afternoons.
To find relief he would often sit on top of the building, sipping a chocolate milk and regarding the city below. It was a nurturing and relaxing ritual that, none-the-less, irked the ire of his partner Adler who seeing Sullivan perched on the roof called his Viennese headshrinker
"Sullivan, Sullivan! Don't do it. Don't jump," pleaded Dr. Baumgartner.

"I've no intention of jumping."

"What's bothering you, Sullivan. You can tell me."

"You, Baumgartner. Nothing is bothering me but you.

Louis Sullivan Is Asked to "Deal With His Issues"

One of the great tragedies for dead artists is that they rarely have a chance to respond to the analysis and critique of their work once they are in the grave. There is still no empirical evidence that the dead haunt the living, but we do know that the future frequently haunts the dead before they go to the grave. Some suspect that it was not a prostitute but news of his paintings selling for seven and eight figures in the 20th and 21st centuries that led Van Gogh to cut off part of his ear.

The case is similar for Louis Sullivan. When he was "outed" by Robert Twombly in his 1985 biography, Sullivan chose to neither confirm nor deny the claims though Twombly asserted that the evidence was there in many of the master architect's writings and his "muscular" buildings. Some have giggled at Sullivan gushing about the Marshall Field Store being a building of admirably "virile" stature.

In his 1996 book, Roman architecture professor Mario Manieri Elia went even further to add onto Twombly's theories: "The causes that Twombly adduces could in fact be described as contributing factors, to some extent acceptable, in addition to a long-standing psychological disturbance variously expressed in Sullivan's interpersonal relationships. A further analysis, including historical factors, would lead us to concentrate on the fascinating anachronism of the figure of Sullivan, an anachronism that (as is so often the case with artists) places him at the peak of his linguistic research during the time of his decline. In short, his professional success was being undermined by a disjunction that can be detected as far back as the late 1880s; right from the beginning of that seventeen-year period that Sullivan indicates as the period of incubation and development of his great crisis."

Don't think that these words didn't sting for Sullivan, even though they were written more than 70 years after his death. And they did not go past his business partner Dankmar Adler who monitored the future quite regularly and through unusual sources. Tension had been brewing between them for months after Adler asserted one morning about their business signage that adorned their office entry was a bit too "frilly". Though sensitive and meticulous, Sullivan was no cream puff and refused to be intimidated by Adler's bullying.

However, when the Elia book came out, Adler became even more stern and insisted that Sullivan seek outside guidance. Though Freudian analysis had yet to jump across the pond from Austria to the U.S. full heartedly until the 20th Century, German immigrant Adler had strong Viennese links and insisted one Dr. Schwartzy Baumgartner whose office on Michigan Avenue near Grant Park. After weeks of Adler's needling and Sullivan's resistance, the battle was finally settled and an appointment was made.
Sullivan felt uneasy from the moment he walked into Baumgartner's overly ornamented office.

"So, Herr Sullivan, how was your relationship with your father?""

"Fine."

"And with your mother?"

"Fine"

"So what would you say it is that is bothering you the most. Right now, at this very moment."

"You."

Dr. Baumgartner conceded that the individual therapy might be too intimate for someone as initially skeptical as Sullivan and that a group setting might be more comfortable and productive. Relieved that the session ended earlier than originally planned, Sullivan agreed to return next week for a group session, although still having grave misgivings.

When he returned to the office, Adler immediately needled him for details.

"So how did the session go?"

"Fine," Sullivan said, dipping his pen into the ink well as he began sketching an ornate corbel.

"And...and..."

"And the doctor-client communication is always confidential."

The following Thursday afternoon, Sullivan dragged his feet slowly along Michigan Avenue as he thought of every excuse to bolt and lie to Adler that he'd attended but he knew Baumgartner would rat on him were he to bail.
Uncomfortable as the first session had been, Sullivan felt even more ill at ease as the small group circled around him and made him sit in the plush center chair. After nibbling on cookies, they were instructed by Dr. Baumgartner asked them to "check in" as each chronicled the emotional baggage of the past week.

"Oh, I was so depressed. I almost jumped into Lake Michigan."

"I had another fight with my mother. And she's been dead for eight years!"

"I keep getting more and more anxious. Even little noises bother me."

The diatribes continued until it finally was Sullivan's turn. There was a long pause until finally Dr. Baumgartner called out gently but firmly, "Mr. Sullivan, it's your turn."

"Pass."

"No, Mr. Sullivan. That's not an option. Surely there is something that you want to share. Some issue that you had to deal with, even if it was something positive."

The group moved in closer to an uncomfortable distance and eyed Sullivan up and down.

"Come on, Sully, share! Share!"

"Hey, little Louie, you gotta tell us your secrets. Just gotta!"

"Fess up. We're all here to share...and support."

Sullivan took a deep breath, staring straight ahead and refusing to make eye contact with the group. "Pass."

Dr. Baumgartner cleared his throat and said, "Okay, let's take a different approach. Mr. Sullivan, let's pretend that your mother and father are in this room. Take a couple of deep breath until you have a clear image of them in your mind's eye. Now what would you say to them, from the depths of your soul, if they were standing right in front of you."

Sullivan took the deep breaths as instructed, closed his eyes and then called out, "Mama! Papa! I'm in a room full of lunatics and they all smell of garlic and moldy cabbage."

With that, Sullivan bolted from his chair, stormed out the door and down Michigan Avenue towards his office. He decided that if it meant dissolving his partnership with Adler it was a better option than one more second in that room.

Louis Sullivan Visits the Century After Next (and Contributes to the Polka Dot Thursday Madness Theme)

In January of 1894, master architect Louis Sullivan sat looking out his office window at the sea of snowy white that gripped Chicago and echoed his broken, shivering heart. He could not fully grasp that his economic descent was already in progress, though some of his glorious jewel box banks would follow in the difficult years ahead when he was paid a mere pittance but he left behind brick hewed emeralds throughout the Midwest prairie that would long outlive him and restore his reputation as a genius.

The "Panic of 1893" the previous spring and summer had ended years of economic and construction boom of which Sullivan was the gleaming star. The dissolving of the stellar firm of Adler and Sullivan left him financially adrift. Unlike Mr. Adler, he lacked the business acumen to promote himself nor the audacity of his protegee Frank Lloyd Wright to so shamelessly extol his own genius.

Sullivan considered himself a poet, even if his medium was brick, steel and glass, sending soaring verses reaching to the heavens like hands grasping for insight and meaning. A poet like Sullivan had no interest in accounting and marketing but preferred to read and edit the works of his idol Walt Whitman to whom he wrote at least one gushing fan letter.

The master architect closes his eyes that mid-morning of 1894, summoning up his muses and guardians.
Within seconds he has left 19th Chicago and its snowy blast and has arrived in 2010, seated in the back garden of the Junkplex near the polka dot toad stools where he is received for tea by host Billy the Blunder Cat and the advisory board of Junk Thief Enterprises. "On behalf of the Junk Thief family, it is my pleasure to welcome you," Billy says, offering him a cup of Kalimpong Darjeeling tea.
"Why, Mr. Sullivan, you look a little distressed," one of the advisory board members notes. Though tiny and cute, the advisory board possess many amazing powers (as seen during this weekend's incident in Orange County), including the gift of insight and empathy.

Sullivan sighs, hanging his head. "Ah, it seems my life has become just a pursuit of money when all I care about is art and roses and beauty and poetry. I miss the summer roses of Chicago. It will be a good five months before I shall see them again. Even if I have enough money to eat, I am starving the beauty and nature."

Billy offers him a rose colored cup of tea and points to the sterling silver rose bush on the other side of the garden. "Come, come, Mr. Sullivan. We are hear to cheer you any time you need support. And remember beneath the snow, those rose bushes are taking deeper root as they rest and will make glorious blossoms soon."

Sullivan nods and then pulls out a letter he recently wrote to Walt Whitman. "Would you like to hear what I wrote?" he asks. "It speaks what dwells deep in my heart."
"Oh, yes, please do," say the advisory board and Billy.

Sullivan pulls the letter from his vest pocket and begins, explaining that his favorite poem in Leaves of Grass is "Sea-Drift", especially the section entitled "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life"

"Dear Mr. Whitman," Sullivan reads. "I, too, 'have sweated through fog with linguists and contenders.' I, too, 'have pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair,' reaching for the basis of a virile and indigenous art. Thus I am enclosing a copy of my own poetic essay 'Inspiration,' because it is your opinion above all other opinions that I should most highly value. Signed, respectfully yours, Louis Henri Sullivan, Chicago, Illinois."

Sullivan puts down the letter, saying that more than any dean of architecture, he most admired Whitman whom he considered to be a fellow artist pursuing the same objectives but in a different field and was the distant soul mate he had forever pursued yet never met.

Unable to finish their cake, Billy and the advisory board dry their tears as they surround Sullivan in a warm embrace as all sing in unison:

Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet has yet chanted
Sing me the universal

All, all for immortality
Love like the light silent wrapping all.
Nature's amelioration blessing all.
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine
and certain.
Forms, objects, growth, humanity, to spiritual
images ripening.

Is it a dream?
Nay but the lack of it the dream.
And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.

The Feline Redemption of Louis Sullivan

Many a great artist has died in obscurity or, perhaps even worse, found a glorious peak early in life only to face horrific ruin in the final years of life.

Few have embodied this as dramatically and sadly as the great Louis Sullivan. In 1890 when, at the age of 34, he unveiled the Auditorium Building, he was introducing to the world the most tremendous man-made structure on earth up to that time. At 17-stories, it was the world's tallest building. At 110,000 tons, it was the heaviest building in the world and had over eight million cubic feet of space.

When Sullivan died on April 14, 1924, died penniless, his friends coming up with $600 for his funeral and the six months past rent due the Hotel Warner where he whiled away his final days in a small, pathetic room of no architectural distinction. Those who don't believe in a resurrection or an after life need only look at the sudden returning praise of his work after years of being out of fashion and his surviving buildings for which there is a tactile afterlife for his vision and imagination. There may not be a heaven where the dead may go, but Sullivan left behind bits of heaven for those living after he died.

The pathetic last days of his life belie the fact that he did not find ways out of the hell of his final quarter of a century. What is not widely known that cats watch over fallen artists and taken them out of their quandary both in life and afterward. Though suspicious of the international style, Sullivan was no fuddy duddy. He was particularly fond of the work of Jim Flora, who was ten years old when Sullivan died and did not come into his full stride until the 1940s. He had a reputation of drawing hepcats that were cute -- and deadly.

But some nights in the teens and twenties -- and even some nights today when the spirit of Sullivan is feeling blue and in search of inspiration -- the cats come to him and transport him into paintings and rooms filled with the work of Flora. This commercial modernist came to greatest note designing covers of RCA and Columbia record albums primarily after the Second World War, a conflict Sullivan did not have to live to endure.

Though he died at the dawn of the Jazz Age, Sullivan was no square to swing and cool, and many nights he can be found swinging with the cats in some room designed by Flora. The creative spirit may come to mold a tower or sculpture or play or "So What", but more often it is still swinging out there beyond the lifetime of the creator, sometimes capturing the imagination of someone today who has no idea of its source.

Just before he died, Sullivan felt compelled to write a third book, The Autobiography of an Idea in which Louis Sullivan writes of Louis Sullivan in the third person while the idea tells his story in the first person:

"That IDEA which had its mystical beginning in so small a thing as a child's heart, grew and nurtured itself upon that child's varied consistently continuing and metamorphosing experiences in time and place, as has been most solicitously laid bare to view in detail, in the course of this recital. For it needs a long, long time, and a rich soil of life-experience to enable a simple, single idea to grow to maturity and solid strength. A French prover has it that 'Time will not consecrate that in which it has been ignored,' while the deep insight of Whitman is set forth in the line, 'Nature neither hastens nor delays.'

Finding Your Guardian Architect

Do you have a guardian architect? Everyone should have one.

My architectural ambitions are on a decidedly small scale -- at least as far as the physical dimensions if not the design and execution. Like food, architecture is one addiction we always need and cannot abstain from as we might chemicals or gambling.

Late in his life, my father started designing wood boxes such as the one on the left. They pleased me at the time but have come to be more cherished in the years since he left since he was completely self taught in making the splices, deciding on the lines, the finishes. More than a few of them remind me of mud mosques rising from the desert in Mali, testaments of individual imagination and not one particular school of design.

Over the years I have collected a number of boxes from India -- some acquired there and, more recently and oddly at Borderlands Bookstore, home of Ripley the hairless cat. While their volumes of sci fi, occult and fantasy have never grabbed my fancy the boxes have.

More than once I've commented that I am probably the only person who has bought them not for drug storage.

Over the past six months I've been delving deeper into the legacy of the boxes or assemblages of Joseph Cornell, not brave enough yet to make my own and wanting to define exactly not just what will go in them but why things will go in them. I've slowly been procuring little items, from ceramic, metal and glass objects to the perfect extractions from nature, driven by not just Cornell but also the 16th and 17th century cabinets of curiosity.

How all of this weaves back to architecture is that lately I've been making little paper boxes in homage to favorite architects. While much of his work is too ornate for me, I love many of the patterns of Owen Jones and recently made the little boxes using some of his wallpaper designs to fashion tiny hatboxes, just big enough to fit those little Japanese kewpies into. Jones may have been a Victorian, but he did adhere to "the grammar of ornament".
It might seem ironic then that my guardian architect is Louis Sullivan whose work and life move me on a deep level. Though credited with being the father of the American skyscraper, it is often said that his work anticipates modernism without actually creating it. That is because he was quite fond of ornamentation. Yet I would not say that his work is ornate. To my mind Sullivan was a modernist but not afraid to be passionate, and his ornamentation echoes and harmonizes with nature not against it.

So tonight I made what I anticipate will be a growing series of Sullivan boxes, this one pulling elements of his "jewel box banks" that grace many small Midwest towns and filigrees from some of his Chicago work. It wouldn't be complete without a likeness of the master architect himself. I wonder if I am the first person to develop a line of 19th century architect action figures.

Chicago's Greatest Contribution

I can get passionate about many aspects of art and architecture, but few can push me over the edge more than the poetic structures of Louis Sullivan. This clip of an -- apparently -- delayed documentary gives me chills watching it. I'm planning a Sullivan tour of Chicago and points beyond this spring. Anyone want to join me?

What We're Hearing on Our iPod

Actually it's great Stax era soul. I love the hit "Don't Mistake My Kindness for Weakness". Sage advice.

What the Hail?

It lasted for a matter of seconds and produced only a few pea sized nuggets, but we had a hail storm in the back garden this afternoon. The sound definitely grabbed Bow's attention. Perhaps she feared the chilly blasts of Chicago had followed her to the West.

Oddest Reference Ever to Kipling

She's Waiting for Her Next Flight at O'Hare

Someone please give her a biscuit and tell her she's a gorgeous, sweet basenji girl.

I Went to Manhattan and All I Got Was a Doorknob

Frequent readers here know that one of my obsessions is the search for the perfect door knob. I think I may have found it. Sunday's visit to MOMA to see the Van Gogh exhibit was a bit disappointing. Perhaps it was a bit overhyped. The couple of dozen paintings were superb, and it was amazing to see Starry Night and The Potato Eaters. I guess I was just expecting it to be a much larger exhibit.

However, after a stepped out just a tad discouraged, I stepped into the interior design exhibit and gasped. There is front of me was a doorknob designed by my favorite American architect, Louis Sullivan. Though I've long since been burned out on Absolutely Fabulous, my favorite episode was when Patsy and Edina flew on the Concord to New York with the single purpose of finding the perfect doorknob and then flew back the same day.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you perfection.