Tag Archives: Kindergarten Chats

Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: On Optimism

Posted on July 7, 2012 by

Let me remark in passing, what this poor word optimism has suffered at the hand of the silly, the superficial and unreflecting, and, above all, at the hand of the professional optimist. We have seen enough to know that a … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: Art of Expression 6: From Work To Creation

Posted on May 20, 2012 by

What underlies man’s desire to create? To begin with, an must originally have had the notion that he could make rather that that he could create. His idea was to do something, to fashion something, for his immediate use: to … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: The Art of Expression 5: Each Problem contains its own Solution.

Posted on April 7, 2012 by

Inasmuch as you will have problems to meet and solve, let me give you this pointer: Every problem contains and suggests its own solution. Don’t waste time looking anywhere else for it. In this mental attitude, in this mood of … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: The Art of Expression 4: Towards an Universal Art of Expression

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

Thus is it necessary in a Human Civilization that men in all walks of life (especially those who assume to be leaders in thought) qualify, each in his way, in the all-inclusive art of expression. For Human Civilization has real … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: The Art of Expression 3: Feudal Arts

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

Now it has been part of out work to expand and concentrate the meaning of words, of phrases. To extricate them from their provincial confinement and let them go free in the world of men. Such a parlor-phrase is now … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: Kindergarten Chats: The Art of Expression: Two

Posted on March 23, 2012 by

[Note: The text is from Kindergarten Chats, condensed and edited] An art of expression must flow from an inner reservoir. It must be the gathered and stored force seeking outlet. It is not as a garment — a something to … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan: The Art of Expression: One

Posted on May 29, 2011 by

[Note: The text is from Kindergarten Chats, condensed and edited] Why do you do this? To help you make of yourself an interpreter, a poet. And why should I be a poet? In order that you may evince power of … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: Man’s Powers

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

Man’s powers mean simply, what man can do. As to his physical nature, man has the power of locomotion, of muscular control; the power to select and manipulate things; to surmount obstacles. Therefore is he by nature a wanderer, a … Continue reading →

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Kindergarten Chats by Louis Sullivan: Part 1

Posted on April 11, 2011 by

I am about one third of my way through the book. For readers’ convenience, Here are all my posts on the book so far. If you enjoy these posts, please subscribe to my blog using the “Email subscription” at the … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: Of Tulips & Men

Posted on April 8, 2011 by

1. In growing tulips to make new varieties, the gardener plants seeds naturally or artificially fertilized. Year after year they bloom with a common grayish blossom–showing reversion to the early tulip type. And so they live along, a dull and … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: Parasitism of Universities

Posted on April 7, 2011 by

1. Anyone who will take the trouble to investigate universities will shortly discover that, as institutions of learning, so-called, they are bankrupt. Not only are they useless to human aspiration, they are actively pernicious, and their theory of operation is … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: On Attention

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

Attention is the essence of our powers; it is that which draws other things towards us, it is that which, if we have lived with it, brings the experiences of our lives ready to our hand. If things make impression … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: On Imagination

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

While we may say that the imagination, in some of its aspects, seems superhuman, in others it is most beautifully human. If it implies the power to receive, it also implies the power to give. If it is as simple … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: An Architect

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

To half close your eyes is to belittle the creative power of man. Touch not with feeble finger the exuberant pulse of human life. The architecture we seek shall be as a man active, alert, supple, strong, sane. A generative … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: A Function Creates Its Own Form

Posted on April 6, 2011 by

1. In nature and in man’s work, there is the initiating pressure of a living force and a resultant structure or mechanism whereby such invisible force is made manifest and operative. The pressure, we call Function; the resultant, Form. Hence … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: On Thought

Posted on April 3, 2011 by

1. Thought is the most rapid agency in the universe. It can travel to Sirius and return in an instant. Nothing is too small for it to grasp; nothing to great. It can go in and out of itself–now focusing … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: Common Sense & Small-Mindedness

Posted on April 2, 2011 by

1. This time, it is evident, my son, that we are looking at a department store. Its purpose is set forth in its general aspect and the form follows function in a simple, straightforward way. The structure is logical, though … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: Of Rivers & Characters

Posted on April 2, 2011 by

1. We are at that dramatic moment in our national life wherein we tremble evenly between decay and evolution, and out architecture, with strange fidelity, reflects this equipoise. That the forces of decadence predominate in quantity there can be no … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: An Oasis

Posted on April 1, 2011 by

[After excoriating the pretentious mangled buildings that fill the city, Louis Sullivan arrives at the Marshall Field Wholesale Warehouse.] Here is a man for you to look at. A man that walks on two legs instead of four, has active … Continue reading →

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Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats: the University & the World

Posted on March 31, 2011 by

1. Louis Sullivan points out to the pupil the mind-numbing consequences of his university education: Having received the conventional college education, you were not taught to observe what was going on in the great world in which your university was … Continue reading →

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