Louis Sullivan’s Design Process

[Music] Lewis Sullivan's design [Music] process LS H Sullivan is one of America's greatest architects he fathered the skyscraper and taught Frank Lloyd Wright he was a prophet poet and pioneer of modern architecture living from 1856 to 192 before along with Frank Lloyd Wright Henry Hobson Richardson and Frank fesse Sullivan is one of the four greatest American Architects there's a direct link of influence from fesse to Sullivan to Wright Sullivan was an apprentice to fesse and Wright was an apprentice to Sullivan would you say that uh any of Sullivan's ideas in architecture influenced you at that

time naturally they were influencing nearly everybody in the country how so he was the real radical of his day and his thought gave us a skyscraper you see the building was when uh buildings first began to be tall they didn't know how to make them tall they would put one twostory or three story building on top of another until they had enough and I remember a Lia Master would come in and did come in and throw something on my table the way building in St Louis he said right the thing is tall what's the matter

with a tall building and there it was tall and after that why the skyscraper began to flourish and I think all the skyscrapers you see today were the result of lisis elvan initiated and that was his kind of mind his type of thought you see he saw the thing directly for what it was his greatest accomplishment was challenging the predominant theory of architectural design as copying and imitating Styles he believed copying precedent destroyed an architect's design process as a living creative art form Architects should base their design on real forces and in particular the building

project from this idea Sullivan famous phrase form follows function was born Sullivan's other great accomplishment was the invention of the skyscraper prior to this Architects struggled with how to design a steel-frame tall building he was the first to give skyscrapers the form they have today the most beautiful thing Sullivan designed was architectural ornamentation something modernism eventually stripped from buildings Sullivan's Mastery of ornamentation is unparalleled in the history of architecture let's look at his design [Music] process Sullivan's design process comes directly from his drawing technique drawing was the main way Architects learned design in the 1800s

although Sullivan is abstracting these techniques into Design Concepts they still have a basis in drawing architecture and Architectural drawing are inextricably linked Sullivan's design process focused on five formal elements organic form geometric form formal subdivision experimentation and engagement of the imagination manipulation of organic forms or the movement method Sullivan starts his design process with the manipulation of organic forms he calls this morphology like morphology and biology this comes from a study of Botany and plant forms but also organic and intuitive expression of energy this is like abstract expressionism in modern art abstraction in art starts

with Plato who believed in ideal forms this abstraction process starts with a shape Plato believed each physical form had an abstract or ideal form Sullivan liberates the energy from the plant form through a process of abstraction and morphology form follows function for Sullivan means the form expresses the energy of the abstract concept today this is called the motion method it uses free hand and arm Motion in drawing to develop a free expressive line or shape axes and sub axes Sullivan uses axes and sub axes to develop form there is always a main axis and from

it sub axes can develop for organic form he creates axes randomly Sullivan gets this concept from the organic form of trees and plants lines function as an axis of power and containers of energy lines create a morphology of form endless variations are possible lines are not just lines they function as elements of movement and energy while also symbolically representing nature and organic processes there is a magical quality to Sullivan's lines he thought of them as mystical elements much like Celtic knot design suvan was Irish so he was influenced by Celtic knot design as an interweaving

of Nature and number organic and inorganic as Sullivan says the line becomes life the soul is is represented as a line that interweaves with the natural and inorganic worlds to become a mystical ecology what's the difference between organic architecture and conventional architecture you mean structurally I imagine yes when you see the Old Post and Beam construction you can say this is the post and beam post and beam there all a kind of superimposition and if you wanted partitions they cut and they would butt you see cut button slash and if you wanted tension you had

to rivet something to something and make a connection it might give away well the organic architecture brought the principles together so that the building was more like this you see it had you could pull on the structure it had tensil strength going to steal and KN to steal it could have great spaces and the great spaces could be protected with glass the orientals of course the Greeks never had any such facility if they' had steel and glass why we wouldn't have to do anything thinking today we'd be copying them but now something had to be

done with these new materials these great new resources and they are tremendous and because of that principle of tenuity we could use the Calver and indest structure came this element of continuity you see one thing merging into another and of another rather than this cut button slash in other words the same element of strength axes are used as a way of constructing and representing form it allows for the measurement of forms the establishment of the grid and development of proportions this is a primary tool Architects use in the design process Frank Lloyd Wright uses axis

in his ornamentation design also it comes directly from Sullivan manipulation of formal geometry Sullivan uses formal geometry which he calls mechanical manipulation the figure comes from plain geometry and includes squares circles triangles pentagons and other polygons formal geometry also has a symbolic mystical meaning that comes from Greek philosophy and neopl ISM this is called sacred geometry and Architects have been using it for thousands of years from ancient Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans to the Renaissance from Gothic architecture to Islamic mosque design Sullivan says these simple forms of ancient Discovery and use were given esoteric

meanings and occult Powers by the men of the day in an effort to control by means of formulas and secret ritual the destiny of man amidst the power of nature with mystical numbers and other phenomena they formed part of an elaborate system of magic to which the world pinned its faith in the Middle Ages in Renaissance formal geometry was drawn using a compass and ruler Sullivan clearly uses this technique but adds to it a freehand style Sullivan uses church window design in his ornamentation these are called pray foils and Quadra foils and are found in

Cathedral design from the Renaissance and Gothic period Sullivan draws lines from the center of these forms extending out to create radiating axes of force this creates a tension between the center and the periphery of the forms this Center periphery concept was an important element in architectural design it was most used in Renaissance architecture to further this attension he checks to poses organic lines of force with inorganic lines today this is often called constructing polygons or the polygon method of design what Sullivan calls parallel axes and parallelism is today called formal subdivision or dynamic symmetry this

technique has been used for Millennia by artists and Architects but Sullivan uses it as a form of creative expression using the parallel lines to express movement energy and growth it's not just a compositional tool to organize the composition but also expresses some magical underlying current that creates the forms Sullivan calls the experimentation he does impromptu this comes from a drawing technique where one draws intuitively whatever comes to mind this is like autonomous writing but instead drawing often artists do gesture drawings as a way of loosening up and drawing freely Sullivan uses this to come up

with creative ideas experimental drawing from one's imagination is common in art and especially in comic book illustration Sullivan shows how this can be a great process for developing ideas and forms this is described in the Marvel way to draw by Stanley and Sal busha busha uses this technique in his comic book art as did many other [Music] artists texture perspective and overlay perspective in architecture texture perspective makes building elements close up have more texture and elements further away have less this is based on the human eye's ability to see clearly close up but loes definition

as elements recede into the distance this can be seen most clearly in the auditor torium building in Chicago Sullivan for this building copied HH Richardson's Romanesque style specifically the Marshall field warehouse this was done in Richardson's personal style called Richardson Romanesque in this building the first floor was called the piano rustia or rustic floor traditionally this is the ground floor with service elements the top floors are piano or Noble floors this scheme comes from plio and vitrus here the lower floors have much texture and as they rise up less and less texture is visible overlay

perspective as I call it is where one form is overlaid over another this creates the illusion that one element is closer and the other further away Sullivan uses this continually to give depth to his ornament even though it is low relief sculpture his ornament looks very [Music] three-dimensional We Are The Music Makers and we are the dreamers of Dreams Architects must have a theory of what makes a good building and good spaces for people to inhabit Sullivan was trying to invent a purely American architecture and used American ideas architects of the time were trying to

reconcile the amazing Technologies and advancements of modern industrial materials and processes with the human- centered world of art craft and Beauty in Sullivan's Theory people have a body and a spirit people are both organic and inorganic the power of the human ego is like a seed it grows creating the world through an act of creativity human beings have a will to express the internal powers of their ego or Soul Society should be created as fertile ground to grow and express the ego not subjugate it so what are the powers of man that Sullivan believed in

he lists five main powers of man the physical intellectual emotional moral and spiritual physical powers are body growth conservation muscular control and Locomotion the power to do things affect changes and to create situations the intellectual group of powers starts with curiosity and ends in highly sophisticated manipulation these are the powers of observation of memory reflection and reasoning by reasoning we mean the construction of diagrams and models to satisfy one's craving for orderly form the emotional group of powers Embraces every Power of feeling this is the basis of action especially spectacular action it is of instinct

although the power of intellect has today become a fetish emotion is the one that has power to move the people of the world the great stabilizing power the central power of man is Free Will and choice shall man be tyrannized by fate or shall he assert his freedom and integrity creating and controlling his Destiny man's spirit liberates and organizes his instinctive Powers his intellect has held them in bondage he must recognize the truth that fate and destiny lies within himself choice is the most potent of his moral [Music] Powers the spiritual power in man functions

as a super quality clarifying Vision a prophet is a dreamer of Dreams a man in a dream that is within a greater dream of Life man dreams of spirit and spirit dreams of life man's dream dispels fear as he dreams of his powers physical intellectual emotional moral and spiritual within this Power Man awakens from the dream an architect must Express these five powers in their work but more than this an architect must give people who inhabit spaces they create the freedom to express these Powers themselves in all they do Architects must give people freedom to

actively inhabit a space Architects must give people intellectual freedom to understand where they are where they are going and where they have been the power of memory and Imagination to be able to Envision a space and to live in IT architects must elicit an emotional response in people people want Beauty and meaning in their lives and architecture should give it to them Architects must be moral and create good places for people to live lastly Architects must provide a spiritual experience for people so they can have meaning in their lives good architecture allows people to have

freedom and exercise their intrinsic powers of free choice Society should be a fertile ground to grow and express the powers of the ego and the spirit not to subjugate it bad environments limit people's free fre choice and turn them into [Music] subjects time hasn't been kind to Sullivan's architecture during the post-war era of urban renewal many of Sullivan's buildings were demolished his Garrick Theater in Chicago was destroyed in the 1960s duly Block in Salt Lake City was was demolished the Bayard building in New York was destroyed real estate values and parking lots destroyed Sullivan's works

and the architectural History of the United States the world Colombian exhibition this Chicago World's Fair in 1893 helped to destroy Sullivan's career the exposition was designed in the neoclassical style of the Boose Arc McKim me and white designed the agricultural building Richard Morris hunt designed the administration building Sullivan designed the transportation building and was the only building not in the neoclassical style Frank Lloyd Wright later wrote by this overwhelming rise of grand Mania I was confirmed in my fear that a native architecture would be set back at least 50 years Wright was correct this architecture

destroyed American Native architecture and instead produced a f fake eurocentric style Sullivan's romantic modernism instantly fell out of style and the fake neoc classical style prevailed when one thinks of a bank no one thinks of Sullivan's Bank buildings but instead a greek temple due to the Panic of 1893 The Firm of Adler and Sullivan was dissolved and Sullivan went into a 20 yearlong Financial decline he eventually became an alcohol his wife left him and he died homeless in a Chicago hotel room in 1924 we can still learn from Sullivan's design process we should also remember

Sullivan's theories and deep humanism he teaches us that architecture is a vehicle to express human creative Powers it's time to bring back deep humanism to architecture I'm Jamie Roberts if you like this video please like comment and subscribe [Music]