Wainwright Building
One of the first high-rise buildings in which height itself became the expression. Sullivan divided the façade into three parts like a column: base, shaft and capital. The piers run unbroken through all the storeys, and at the top the building is crowned by a frieze of terracotta ornament.
The brewer Ellis Wainwright commissioned an office building in St Louis, and Adler and Sullivan’s office in Chicago designed it. The building went up in 1890–1891 with a steel frame, which made it possible to build higher and with larger windows than load-bearing masonry buildings. At ten storeys it was one of the early high-rises. Sullivan was the artistic force in the office and Adler the engineer. Sullivan later formulated the idea that form follows function.
The façade is divided into three parts. The two lowest storeys form a base with large shop windows. Then come seven office storeys in which the brick piers run unbroken upwards, while the horizontal spandrels are set back and decorated with ornament. At the top is a frieze with round windows and rich leaf ornament in terracotta, and a heavy cornice. Sullivan wanted the tall building to express its height rather than look like several buildings stacked on top of each other.
The building was threatened with demolition in the 1970s but was bought by the State of Missouri, which renovated it and uses it as offices. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1968. The Wainwright Building is regarded as one of the most important early high-rises and as a model for how the skyscraper could be designed. Sullivan’s ideas were carried on by his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright.