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Sullivan celebrates the intersection of architects, architectural historians, and preservationists whose cutting-edge work and passions centered around Louis Sullivan’s new American architectural language. Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) wanted to bring his buildings metamorphically to life by morphing the rigid geometry and technology of sound architecture with exuberant ornament derived from nature and organic forms. A generation after Sullivan’s death, young photography student Richard Nickel (1928-1972) encountered Sullivan’s buildings and embraced the idea that his ornament filled his buildings with the power of nature’s energy and life — transforming architecture into works of art that could inspire the people who encountered them. Nickel dedicated his life to documenting Sullivan’s legacy through both photographs and the ornamental fragments he salvaged while attempting to save the buildings from demolition.

This exhibition focuses on Adler & Sullivan’s Chicago buildings of the 1880s and early 1890s with photographs by Richard Nickel and architectural fragments he rescued, some never before seen by the public.