Cornice for Elevator Enclosure Grille, from the Chicago Stock Exchange

In 1871, fire devastated central Chicago, leaving a third of the city’s inhabitants homeless. A great rebuilding followed. The city’s architects transformed steel and other modern industrial materials into some of the world’s first skyscrapers, maximizing floor space by building upward. For Louis Sullivan, this new building form required a new form of ornament, a mission that aligned with an international effort to beautify everyday life in the face of rapid change. The economic inequality that was part of this change often divided the creators and consumers of this beauty, as disputes over low wages that hampered the construction of one of Sullivan’s most prominent projects, the Chicago Stock Exchange building, make clear. This is a part from one of the grilles that surrounded the elevator shaft on each floor. Sullivan designed these to be seen by both visitors walking the building’s corridors and those riding from floor to floor. The stylized seeds bursting from pods and abstracted foliage are characteristic of Sullivan’s exuberant designs inspired by nature and especially attuned to the local prairie landscape. His attention to how form might enhance function, as well as his use of ornamentation, defined his style and influenced many other architects, particularly in the Midwest.