Louis Sullivan

(1856 - 1924)

In 1872 Louis Sullivan, an architect credited with the phrase “form follows function,” matriculated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age sixteen. He left after his first year to work in a Philadelphia architectural firm, and in 1874 he sailed to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, again leaving after a year. In 1881 he and his partner Dankmar Adler started an architectural firm in Chicago; while there, he earned a reputation as the father of the skyscraper, designing the Guaranty Building in Buffalo and the Wainwright Building in St. Louis.