"Father of the skyscraper," author of "form follows function"
An American architect, leader of the Chicago School, hailed as "the father of the skyscraper." At the end of the nineteenth century, the steel frame and the elevator let a building grow toward the sky for the first time without limit. Sullivan was among the first to ask: what should this wholly new, soaring kind of building look like? He put forward the famous slogan that shaped all of modern architecture — "form follows function": a building’s form should honestly express its inner structure and use, not put on a classical dress. He developed a clear, vertical facade language stressing the sense of height, while remaining obsessed with intricate, beautiful organic ornament. He was both a founder of modernist functional thought and the teacher of Wright.
Facing the skyscraper, an unprecedented new species, Sullivan declared: "Form ever follows function." He held that just as in nature a bird’s form is decided by flight and a fish’s by swimming, a building’s form should honestly follow its function and structure, not be forced into a stone coat of ancient Rome. The line became the creed and battle cry of all modernist architecture that followed.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.