Plain and Tall

In Louis Sullivan’s article “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” one of the main things he focuses on is simply, everything must be tall. He claims “It must be tall, every inch of it tall” p. 3. It’s very obvious to have a skyscraper you need height, that is what makes a skyscraper after all. Sullivan then goes into the architecture of office buildings, and even though they are tall they arent beautiful or groundbreaking. Sullivan seems very critical of the architects. He explains to us that even though each floor has a purpose that it’s plain and repetitive. For example he says “fourth and above this an indefinite number of stories of offices piled tier upon tier, one tier just like another tier, one office just like all the other offices” p.2.  What I think he means by this, is it takes no design skill to build office builds, there is no creativity involved. However, office buildings are very necessary, and when bunched together they do look beautiful. For example New York City is filled with very tall office buildings, which when they are alone are boring and unsightly. But when you bunch them all together, they make an interesting and different skyline. So to Louis Sullivan’s point, yes they are plain and repetitive, but because they are so tall they have the ability to create a beautiful and unique city.