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's Further Travels

Mr. Sullivan is in Seattle this week. He was impressed by the simplicity of the design and form of the Space Needle. However he is not sure what function that form follows, leading him to remark, "At times form follows the funk."

Sunday Evening Company

Famed architect Louis Sullivan has widened his circle of friends to deal with some "unresolved issues" that have been lingering since the beginning of the year. It's still not clear if this is a good idea. Please feel free to weigh in on the topic.

Olympic Harlequin

We all love Philip Johnson, but he dumped some of his worst architecture in Texas in the 1970s and 1980s. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens in Texas stays there and festers until it becomes a president or the Tea Party Movement.
Phew, San Francisco is immune to such things. Oh, wait, we're not! Not only do we have a Neiman-Marcus in Union Square, we have one with a harlequin design by Philip Johnson. However, he claimed he was Phillip Johnston when he designed it. (Look closely, he just added two consonants.)Just how bad is Johnson's Texas architecture? Check out the website for the Crescent in Dallas which he designed. Crescent as in croissant, as in French as in faux Versailles. They have some really great propaganda:

• As culturally vibrant as the neighborhood in which it sits, Rosewood Crescent Hotel is ideally located in the heart of Uptown Dallas. Within walking distance of the downtown Dallas' Arts District, where the new Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre complete the largest urban arts district in America, the luxury hotel consistently wins hearts and accolades. Offering chic, contemporary styling, a serene spa and dining options ranging from Nobu to Starbucks, Rosewood Crescent Hotel offers discreet, professional service with Texas charm.

The biggest arts district in America? Or the Americas? I've been to Buenos Aires, and I think theirs is much bigger. And San Francisco's arts district, the Engleside, is bigger than Midland AND Odessa combined. Come on, Texas, you're big with oil and Texas Instruments not "the arts". However, nothing says "the arts" more than "Rosewood".
What goes around, comes around., Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? Of course not. No one watches the Winter Olympics since there are no Cuban or Brazilian men's swim teams, but they do have harlequin patterned curling pants from "the San Francisco Bay Area". (Actually Santa Rosa, but isn't that also in Texas?)

Julia Morgan Does Some Research

When Julia Morgan accepted the commission to design Hearst Castle, there were many cynics who questioned if "a girl was up for the task". Humpf! She certainly showed them, didn't she.

Before embarking on the actual design, she did extensive research, mostly in New York where she was less well known and could travel inconspicuously. Here we see her outside the New York Public Main Library where she did much of her research.

You Know the Woman on the Left. Who Is on the Right? What Does Louis Sullivan Think?

What Animal Do You See?

After his return from Sacramento, Mr. Sullivan agreed to another session with Dr. Baumgartner.

"First, I vahnt you to imagine an animal. Any animal. Don't give it too much thought."

Baumgartner had become involved in animal visualization therapy that swept Vienna in the late 19th century and the U.S. in the late 20th century.
"So, vhat animal are you imagining, Mr. Sullivan?"

"An elephant."
"But don't you see a little pussycat?"
"Yeah, don't you see me?" said Billy the Blunder Cat.

"Yes," Mr. Sullivan said, "I see a cat, but you told me to imagine an animal, and I am imagining an elephant."
Suddenly the elephant lifted Mr. Sullivan as he let out a girlish giggle.

"Ah, I see it too," Dr. Baumgartner said. "And vhat an enormous trunk it has!"
"Hey, what about me?" Billy whined.
"Yes, Billy," Dr. Baumgarnter said. "Vhat about you. Vhat was your childhood like?"

"Hey, Doc, mind your own beeswax."
Baumgartner returned to Sullivan and approached the elephant. "May I please touch that big, pink trunk?"

"Get your own visualization animal, Baumgartner!"

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like X-Street

Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan continued their tour of Sacramento along X-Street and then towards its historical core.

Mr. Sullivan found its display of signage quaint and reminiscent of towns such as Elkhart and Grinnell.

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.

Devastating Denver Drama

If I seem a little frazzled as I write this at 8 a.m. it's because I am and am just getting my latte after rising nearly four hours ago. Just as I was enjoying a deep sleep, the phone rang, and it was "Mr." Sullivan demanding that I fetch him at the Brown Palace in downtown Denver and return him to our room at the Lotus Club of the Rockies.

"Can't you hail a cab yourself?" I asked.

"Oh, that's so unseemly," he replied.

Duty. Sleepiness. Slavishness. Which trait or was it all of them that took me down to the other end of downtown where I saw Mr. Sullivan sitting on a pumpkin colored velvet settee while a Guatemalan housemaid vacuumed the carpets with a mustard colored Dyson.

"Oh, I thought you'd never arrive," Mr. Sullivan exclaimed, throwing his arms around me for the first time during our journey just east of the Rockies. His mysterious disappearances and late night frolics were forgiven as the pleasant brush of his bear rubbed against my cheek.

"How could I stay here," he sighed. "Only after my second drink did I realize I was staying in a hotel of a Frank E. Edbrooke design*"

(Frank E. Edbrooke is said to have been "inspired" by the Chicago School architecture of Adler and Sullivan. Those from Chicago had a more randy word for "inspire".)

Let's Just Start Back at Zero

"Mr. Sullivan?"

"Mr. Junk Thief?"

"Where are you?"

"Where are you?"

"Steuben's at 17th and Pearl. Amazing flats across the street. I think you'd be impressed."

"Will you come pick me up?"

"Yes, just tell me where you are."

"You won't scold me."

"No, Mrs. Sullivan, just tell me where you are. I love Denver, but let's go home."

Little Louis Wants to Fly

Junk Thief is heading off to Denver tomorrow, and all day long Louis Sullivan has been pleading: "Take me along! Take me along!" Oh, what to do? Can a 19th Century architect handle increased security screenings? Is the TSA ready to see a 19th Century architect prove that he doesn't have a bomb in his pants? This may be a difficult decision.

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.