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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright

Sept 24 – Nov 27, 2021
659 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States

It’s hard to imagine Chicago without Adler & Sullivan—the architectural firm that designed the Auditorium Building (home of Chicago’s most majestic theater) and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building. It’s also hard to imagine Frank Lloyd Wright without Louis Sullivan. Wright worked at Adler & Sullivan for five years and called Sullivan his “Lieber Meister” (Beloved Master). Working together on the James Charnley House in Chicago’s Gold Coast, Sullivan and Wright built a bold Modernist statement that is today a house museum. In this fascinating show, Wrightwood 659 focuses on two lost buildings: Adler & Sullivan’s Garrick Theatre Building, opened in 1891 and razed in 1961, and Wright’s Larkin Building in Buffalo, New York, only 44 when it was demolished in 1950. Both buildings were masterpieces. —L.J.

L. Lewandowski, “Garrick,” c. 1953 © Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology.