Form Follows Function On Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats and the viral ideas of influential how-to books.

Eve Sneider:

Kindergarten Chats, Sullivan writes in the 1918 foreword, “is free of technicalities, is couched in easy dialogue form, and its doctrine should be intelligible to all.” The book takes the shape of an extended conversation between a recent graduate of architecture school and a more seasoned—and stubborn—master of the craft. The educator is no doubt modeled on Sullivan himself, a notoriously difficult person whose students included Frank Lloyd Wright, his most famous pupil. The guidance Sullivan wishes to impart is not at all technical—he is unconcerned with teaching his student about the finer points of drafting blueprints and constructing skyscrapers. He’s teaching a worldview instead. “Every building you see is the image of a man whom you do not see,” Sullivan tells his pupil. “The man is the reality, the building its offspring.” In short, you are what you make. If architects wish to build beautiful (and functional) buildings, they must first understand certain things about themselves.