Louis H. Sullivan

Louis Sullivan was born in Boston, Massachusetts as the son of a dancing master. During his early adult years, he studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked as a draftsman with the renowned Philadelphia firm of Furness and Hewitt. Following the great Chicago Fire of 1871, Sullivan moved to Chicago to take part in the building boom. He spent his first year in Chicago working for William LeBaron Jenney, the architect who is credited with designing the first skyscraper. Sullivan then studied for a year in Paris at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. He returned to Chicago became a draftsman for John Edelman, who introduced him to Dankmar Adler. In 1879 Sullivan was hired by architect and engineer Dankmar Adler and within a few years later, Sullivan became a full partner in the firm. The firm of Adler and Sullivan began work on the Auditorium Building in 1886, when Sullivan was only thirty years old.
In 1890 Sullivan was one of ten architects chosen to design a major structure for the "White City", the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. The result was the colorful Transportation Building with an arched "Golden Door." The building was often criticized by Americans as it was the only multicolored facade in the White City. Outside American however, Sullivan's Transportation Building was the only building at the 1893 World's Fair to receive extensive recognition, receiving awards from the Union Centrale des Artes Decoratifs.