Elevator Grill from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building

Description

This panel originally formed part of the grille surrounding the elevator in the Chicago Stock Exchange Building designed by architect Louis Sullivan. Often dubbed the father of early skyscraper design, Sullivan rejected neoclassical ornament as inappropriate for American building, preferring instead to stylize natural forms into abstractions—as in the seedpod pattern of this grille’s ironwork. Sullivan’s dictum “form follows function” influenced generations of architects, among them his one-time employee Frank Lloyd Wright.