“Review of *Louis Sullivan—Prophet of Modern Architecture*, by Hugh Morrison”

AboutEverard M. Upjohn reviews Hugh Morrison's *Louis Sullivan—Prophet of Modern Architecture* (Museum of Modern Art and W. W. Norton, 1935), the first substantial scholarly biography of Sullivan, praising it as "at last ... a worthy discussion of Sullivan, his life, his architecture, and his theory." Upjohn credits Morrison's compact, well-organized treatment of Sullivan's early life — drawn largely from *The Autobiography of an Idea* but rendered with more narrative discipline than Sullivan's own discursive prose — and his clear tracing of Sullivan's stylistic development away from Richardsonian influence in the 1880s toward a more personal expression in the 1890s. He finds the book's illustrations the best yet published, apart from a few plates in the *Western Architect*, but regrets the absence of detailed close-up photographs of ornament, particularly at the National Farmers' Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota, and the scarcity of building plans, including for the Auditorium Building. The bulk of the review engages Morrison's closing discussion of eclecticism versus functionalism, in which Upjohn questions several of Morrison's specific architectural and historical arguments — including his claim that Reims Cathedral's flying buttresses are structurally superfluous — while broadly endorsing the book's stature as an essential reference, closing with the observation that Morrison, like Sullivan, has demonstrated that "form follows function."

PURL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0004-3079%28193603%2918%3A1%3C125%3ALSOMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O