The latest exhibition from the Chicago gallery Wrightwood 659, Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan & Wright, elicits both joy and sadness. This paean to two of America’s most celebrated designers features parallel narratives of the life and death of Sullivan’s 1892 Garrick Theater in Chicago and Wright’s 1906 Larkin Building in Buffalo. Though both met with the wrecking ball, this show—scheduled to be on view through November 27—enables us to savor their innovation, beauty, and artistry once again.
Filling the gallery’s second and third floors, the Garrick display is a collaboration among the architect John Vinci, the cultural historian Tim Samuelson, the architectural-salvage expert Eric J. Nordstrom, and the writer-artist Chris Ware, who also designed the catalogue for the Sullivan component—if you can’t get to the gallery, at least get this brilliant book. The Larkin Building exhibit, which was developed by University of Pennsylvania associate professor Jonathan D. Katz, occupies the fourth floor. Though shown through separate curatorial lenses, the buildings’ stories overlap. A Sullivan protégé who worked on the Garrick, Wright opened his first independent office on the building’s 15th floor. But, more critically, both buildings embodied technological feats and a wealth of cultural history. And both were reduced to parking only decades after completion.
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