“Review of *The Idea of Louis Sullivan*, by John Szarkowski, with an introduction by Terence Riley”

AboutA review of the 2000 Bulfinch Press reissue of John Szarkowski's 1956 photographic study of Sullivan's architecture. Solan frames the book less as architectural history than as "a complex and elegant visual critique of the relationship between architecture and photography," describing how Szarkowski — later the longtime director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art — was inspired by Sullivan's *Kindergarten Chats* to produce a personal, impressionistic photographic portfolio interspersed with excerpts of Sullivan's own writing and an interview with the Wisconsin couple who commissioned one of his late banks. The review credits the new edition's higher-quality reproductions and Terence Riley's contextualizing introduction, and singles out Szarkowski's images of the Chicago Auditorium Building and the Carson Pirie Scott department store as its strongest material, connecting the reissue to renewed scholarly interest in Sullivan following David Van Zanten's *Sullivan's City*.

PURL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-9808%28200209%2961%3A3%3C408%3ATIOLS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6