Louis Sullivan Character Analysis in The Devil in the White City

The temperamental Chicago architect who designs the award-winning Transportation Building at the World’s Fair, Sullivan regards Burnham as a rival, and opposes Burnham’s efforts to give the Fair a neoclassical aesthetic. Though Sullivan’s career goes downhill after the World’s Fair, his reputation is rehabilitated by Frank Lloyd Wright, the great architect who, ironically, Sullivan fired in the 1890s.

Louis Sullivan Quotes in The Devil in the White City

The The Devil in the White City quotes below are all either spoken by Louis Sullivan or refer to Louis Sullivan. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Vintage edition of The Devil in the White City published in 2004.

As Wright’s academic star rose, so too did Sullivan’s. Burnham’s fell from the sky. It became re rigueur among architecture critics and historians to argue that Burnham in his insecurity and slavish devotion to the classical yearnings of the eastern architects had indeed killed American architecture. But that view was too simplistic, as some architecture historians and critics have more recently acknowledged. The fair awakened America to beauty and as such was a necessary passage that laid the foundation for men like Frank Lloyd Wright …

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Page Number and Citation: 376

Explanation and Analysis:

Louis Sullivan Character Timeline in The Devil in the White City

The timeline below shows where the character Louis Sullivan appears in The Devil in the White City. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...to build the Chicago Auditorium to a rival firm, headed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Still, they are hugely successful. (full context)

...to build an entire city in three years. This pace is almost impossible; their rivals, Sullivan and Adler, for instance, have spent three years on a single building. Nevertheless, they proceed,... (full context)

Civic Pride and American Patriotism Theme Icon

...five Chicago firms to design buildings for the Fair; of these five, only Adler & Sullivan refuses to cooperate. (full context)

...the Board of Architects for the World’s Fair; the Board elects Hunt as their chairman. Sullivan is privately unhappy with this decision, since he thinks that, in contrast to Hunt and... (full context)

...he is taking care of his old partner, who seems in surprisingly good spirits. Despite Sullivan’s feelings, the Board chooses a neoclassical style for the World’s Fair. Meanwhile, Root succumbs to... (full context)

Sullivan, who designs the Transportation Building, takes advice from Burnham and designs a single large entrance,... (full context)

...since he has his legacy as a designer and his children to keep him happy. Sullivan, who has received many awards for the Transportation Building and its Golden Door, returns to... (full context)

Late in his life, Louis Sullivan condemned the World’s Fair. After it was finished, he only received a small number of... (full context)

Sullivan wrote a biography in 1924 in which he criticized Burnham and the World’s Fair for... (full context)

Margaret and Daniel Burnham are buried together in Graceland, Chicago, near Sullivan, Root, and Mayor Harrison. (full context)