Doric Order Details

1872–1873

Briefly studies architecture under William Ware

Sullivan never completed a professional education: he studied architecture at MIT only briefly (1872–1873), where his chief teacher was William Robert Ware.

1873

Chicago after the Great Fire: with Jenney

In 1873 Sullivan moved to Chicago, where a building boom was under way after the Great Fire of 1871, and worked for William Le Baron Jenney, the architect often credited with erecting the first steel-frame building. After less than a year he left for Paris.

1873

With Furness in Philadelphia, until the crisis of 1873

After a year of study Sullivan moved to Philadelphia and took a job with the architect Frank Furness, but the Depression of 1873 dried up much of Furness’s work and he had to let Sullivan go.

1874–1876 · Formation

Beaux-Arts de Paris

1875–1879

A draughtsman for Johnston & Edelman

Back in Chicago from Paris, Sullivan worked as a draughtsman for the firm of Joseph S. Johnston & John Edelman; he was assigned the design of fresco-secco stencils (a technique applied to dry plaster) for the interior of Moody Tabernacle.