Autobiography of an Idea Author:Louis H. Sullivan, Louis Henry Sullivan The early creative years of pioneer American architect and theorist called the "father of the skyscraper", Louis Henri Sullivan. Projects, insights, evaluations. Essential for an understanding of early modern American architecture. 34 plates. — Table of Contents: — List of Plates vii Introduction 1 Foreword 5 C... more »hapter I. The Child 9 Chapter II. "There was a child went forth every day" 25 Chapter III. And Then Came Spring! 38 Chapter IV. A Vacation 53 Chapter V. Newburyport 72 Chapter VI. Boston 91 Chapter VII. Boston. The New Rice Grammar School 109 Chapter VIII. Louis Goeth on a Journey 129 Chapter IX. Boston -- The English High School 151 Chapter X. Farewell to Boston 175 Chapter XI. Chicago 198 Chapter XII. Paris 219 Chapter XIII. The Garden City 241 Chapter XIV. Face to Face 260 Chapter XV. Retrospect 285 Index 331
Several have written of Louis Henri Sullivan, his architecture, his creation of organic ornament, his literature (both prose and poetry), his philosophy, his prophecies and his teachings. Some writers, still entwined with Renaissance architecture and art, were too close to the mirror to see Sullivan and his work as well as we believe we can today. A few others like Claude Bragdon, who wrote the foreword for the first edition of this book in 1924,were able by thought and deed to remove the academic film from the mirror. Bragdon saw Louis Herni Sullivan as a man to be coupled with Whitman and Lincoln. Thirty-two years ago, this evaluation of Sullivan may have seemed an exaggeration borne of enthusiastic appreciation by a few friends; today, it is not at all remote.« less