Wainwright Building - by Louis H. Sullivan

Architects had struggled to find the best way to design the emerging skyscrapers for a while before Sullivan built the Wainwright. He approached the problem by designing the building like a column. The lower two floors form the base, following floors shaped a long shaft, and the cornice is the capital. The amount and wealth of all the decoration is so personal that it would be called Sullivanesque.

The Wainwright Building is important as Sullivan walked away from the European and historic styles and used an original idea to give visual unity to the modern skyscraper.