Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

including as much engineering as architectural expertise, Sullivan contributednot only a large share of the key building designs but also devised anappropriate functional design theory.The famous aphorism of Louis Sullivan, “Form follows function,”has often been taken as a motto for the entire modernist movement in architectureand design. Although Sullivan is usually credited with the firstdefinite statement of an architectural theory based on an analogy betweenthe form-function relationship in living nature and in architecture, his ideaswere strongly influenced by the conceptions of nineteenth-century Germanarchitectural writers going back to Goethe, as transmitted by the manyGerman immigrant architects in Chicago. In Sullivan’s architectural theory,the functionalism necessary for life in nature was considered necessaryfor beauty in architectural design. Sullivan had also derived this analogyfrom his own nature studies and from contemplation of Herbert Spencer’sbiological writings, which discuss earlier debates among biologists aboutthe relative roles of form and function in living organisms. Also, Sullivan’sgrandfather, a follower of transcendentalist George Ripley, nurtured in theyoung Sullivan a love of nature and free thinking. Sullivan’s conceptions,in turn, were passed on to his influential assistant Frank Lloyd Wright, themost visible twentieth-century advocate of “organic architecture.”Sullivan made penetrating efforts to discover and then create accordingto the underlying principles or laws by which the visible forms of naturecome about. That Sullivan felt he had grasped an essential and universalverity is indicated in his 1901 article, “Function and Form”: “The interrelationof function and form. It has no beginning, no ending. It is immeasurablysmall, immeasurably vast; inscrutably mobile, infinitely serene; intimatelycomplex yet simple.” As applied to the tall commercial building, Sullivanattempted to express its practical functions: a ground floor of stores requiringready access, light, and large areas; a second story of large, accessible,well-lit rooms; an indefinite stack of identical offices; and, at the top, a largeattic for pipes, tanks, valves, and other equipment related to the building’sutilities. In addition to these, he wanted to represent the overall character of“loftiness” of such a building as “a proud and soaring thing” with no dissentinglines. A look at Sullivan’s Wainwright Building in St. Louis of 1890–1891or his destroyed Guaranty Building in Buffalo of 1894–1895 indicates thatthese structures arose directly from this functional and expressive program(Figure 10). The first two stories use a different stone sheathing and featurean obvious entrance and larger windows; above this rise several uniformtiers of offices pierced by unbroken vertical lines; and on the top story, a largeprojecting slab terminates the ascension above a profusion of curving ter-115