8 Quotes & Sayings By Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan was a prolific architect and designer of buildings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered the founder of modernism, a style that today encompasses a variety of architectural possibilities. His best known buildings include the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, the Sullivan-Baker Tower in Chicago, and the Carson Pirie Scott store in Chicago Read more

Sullivan's designs were influential in the development of skyscrapers, skyscraper bridges, skyscraper stairs, skyscraper elevators, and even skyscraper stairwells.

1
There lies another power in man. That power is Moral: Its name is CHOICE! Within this one word, Choice, lies the story of man’s world. It stands for the secret poise within him. It reveals as a flashlight all his imagings, his phantasies, his willful thoughts, his deeds, from the greatest to the least, even in this gliding hour we call today. This one word, Choice, stands for the sole and single power; it is the name of the mystery that lies behind the veil of all human appearances. A word that dissolves the enigma of men’s deeds. A word, a light that not only illuminates all his obvious works, all the inner springs and motives of his civilizations, but a light whose rays reach within the sanctuary of the secret thought of each and all, thus revealing the man of the past and the man of today, starkly in personal status as a social factor of beneficence or wore. Need we know man’s thoughts? View his works, his deeds; they tell his choice. Louis Sullivan
2
Form follows function. Louis Sullivan
3
The building's identity resided in the ornament. Louis Sullivan
4
Once you learn to look at architecture not merely as an art more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant. Louis Sullivan
5
In the history of mankind there are recorded two great Inversions. The first, set forth by the Nazarene to the effect that love is a greater power and more real than vengeance. The second proclaimed the earth to be a sphere revolving in its course around the sun. These affirmations were made in the face of all evidence sacred to the contrary. Louis Sullivan
6
The feudal concept of self-preservation is poisoned at the core by the virulent assumption of master and man, of potentate and slave, of external and internal suppression of the life urge of the only one - of its faith in human sacrifice as a means of salvation. Louis Sullivan
7
Implicit in true freedom of spirit lies a proud and virile will. Such glorious power of free will to choose, envisages beneficent social responsibility as manifest and welcome. Louis Sullivan