Print Size: 20" x 30" (Frame Size: 20" x 30") Architect: Adler & Sullivan Chicago 1893
With the monumental entrance to the old Chicago Stock Exchange, seen here in plan, side and front elevations, Louis Sullivan brought his work to its greatest achievement. Whereas other architects of the day looked to Europe for inspiration, Sullivan stridently pioneered a specifically American style, husbanding the modern skyscraper in the process. The Stock Exchange reveals Sullivan’s characteristic combination of skeletal steel frame, clearly expressed with plain geometry on the office floors, and exuberant profusion of organic terra cotta interlace to ornament the entrance and other key points of the façade.
The 13-story building was erected in 1893 for a grand total of $1,131,555.16; it was demolished in 1972. Like the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, which gave rise to the Landmarks Preservation Commission in New York, the battle to save the Stock Exchange spawned the preservation movement in Chicago, and the great Romanesque arched entrance was adopted as the logo of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. The arch itself was salvaged by the Art Institute of Chicago and is now exhibited as a freestanding relic in a park outside the museum.
