“Review of *Architecture as Nature: The Transcendentalist Idea of Louis Sullivan*, by Narciso G. Menocal”

AboutA review of Narciso Menocal's monograph arguing that Sullivan's entire body of work and writing was driven by a single sustaining "transcendentalist idea" — the artistic expression of spiritual communion with nature — which Menocal traces from Sullivan's 1886 essay "An Essay on Inspiration" through his late-life *Autobiography of an Idea*. Weingarden summarizes Menocal's chapter-by-chapter argument, including his treatment of the Adler & Sullivan partnership years (1883–1895), Sullivan's mature ornament and skyscraper designs, and his post-1895 career including the Bradley House commission, while also raising critical questions about Menocal's psychological framing of Sullivan's late-career decline as rooted in "obstinate dedication to anachronistic conceptions" rather than simple external misfortune.

PURL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-9808%28198203%2941%3A1%3C74%3AAANTTI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F