Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

a cotta ornament.Veering from Sullivan’sfunctionalistfoundation, the laterdevelopment ofthe American skyscraperpursued theimitation of abstractEuropean aestheticand geometric factorsintroduced byarchitects such asMies van der Roheand Le Corbusier.Sullivan perhapsrecognizedthat the essentialfunctions of plantsexist more in timethan in space. Thevisible form of thefunction “oak“ isone that changesthrough the seasons.Sullivan reflectedthis botanicalmetamorphosisof form in the methodfor generatinghis unique style ofFigure 10. Louis Sullivan. Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York,1894–95. Chicago Architectural Photographing Companyorganic architectural ornament. This was pictorially described only late inhis career in the publication he finished in 1923, A System of ArchitecturalOrnament According with the Philosophy of Man’s Powers. Therein several sequencesillustrate the production of an intricate, stylized design through aprogressive transformation of a simple geometric or organic form abstractedfrom nature (Figure 11).In his 1914 In the Cause of Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)stated the basic concept of his organic approach to design: “By organicarchitecture I mean an architecture that develops from within outward inharmony with the conditions of its being as distinguished from one that is116