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 "the recognized trinity of American architecture".
Louis Sullivan was born to an Irish-born father and a Swiss-born mother, both of whom had immigrated to the United States
in the late 1840s.
How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. Yet evidently the true object of education, now as ever, is to develop the capabilities of the head and of the heart.
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.
It has, alas, for centuries been taught that the intellect and the emotions were two separate and antagonistic things. This teaching has been firmly believed, cruelly lived up to. How depressing it is to realize that it might have been taught that they are two beautifully congenial and harmonious phases of that single and integral essence that we call the soul. That no nature in which the development of either is wanting can be called a completely rounded nature.