McVickers Theater, Chicago, Illinois, Sketch c. 1883 - 1891

Curator: Look at the ghostly lightness of it! A kind of half-remembered song sketched onto paper. Editor: Here we have Louis Sullivan's preparatory graphite drawing on paper, "McVicker’s Theater, Chicago, Illinois, Sketch," dating from around 1883 to 1891. It resides here at the Art Institute of Chicago. It exemplifies Sullivan's ornamentation ideas for architectural constructs. Curator: Ornamentation... you make it sound so functional! To me, it's the yearning for something more than pure structure. Notice how the design feels both contained and wildly free. It’s controlled, yet has this organic, almost frantic energy bubbling beneath the surface. Editor: Well, for Sullivan, ornament wasn't mere decoration. It was integral to the building's identity, reflecting its purpose and social context. He saw architecture as a social act, responding to the industrial conditions of his era. And he was deeply interested in how those structures are manufactured: drawing after all is labor. Curator: And yet, this piece doesn’t shout industry, it whispers of natural forms— stylized floral motifs reaching, striving. It feels deeply…human. It gives architecture soul, really. This piece is like the secret wish of the McVicker's Theater, yearning to become something...other. Editor: Yes, but this drawing highlights the craft. It speaks of mass production and industrial capability meeting handmade design. Without those advances, ornament on such scale simply wouldn't be possible. The very making of something like this is important to Sullivan's statement, and the economic and cultural status that ornament came to occupy in cities like Chicago. Curator: You always bring me back to earth, don't you? And yet... perhaps that's necessary. To appreciate the earthiness that allows art to sprout. Even art about buildings. Even on humble paper in graphite. Editor: Exactly. Without acknowledging the tangible conditions shaping artistic practices, we miss the entire point. Sullivan used paper in a very deliberate way to plan this type of architecture; you must understand that to see the architecture correctly, too. Curator: Hmm. I will reflect on it, I’m sure, the next time I visit Chicago. It may never become that ghost design, but that whisper now in the sketch may give a bit of insight as I go. Editor: I’d encourage everyone to give these “ghostly whispers” a second listen; they have a lot to tell us still, on labor and craft and much more.