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Summary - Prepared by: Giles Phillips
Apart from the structural innovation of the Guaranty, it is also noted for the ornate terracotta detailing, which clads the entire facade of the building. Sullivan also designed ornamentation wrought iron detailing, all finish elements, and key interiors, including the Lobby and notably the elevator cages. The complex ornamentation expresses Sullivan's deep interest in the emergence of structure within the natural world, and gives the massive structure an approachable scale that is both tangible and complex. The completion of the building coincided with publication of The Tall office Building Artistically Considered, Sullivan's famous essay in which he introduced the axiom that "form follows function". Just before his death in 1924, he produced a series of plates titled A System of Architectural Ornament, According with a Philosophy of Man's Powers, which further detailed the process he followed to generate ornamentation, describing his ideas about expression and structure more visually. For this project, I've developed a Shape Grammar for Sullivan's detailing, based upon one of the tiles from the building's facade. To develop the grammar, I studied Sullivans designs, and also his writings, which speak in depth on the subject of ornament.
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The Guaranty Building was built in 1894 by Adler & Sullivan in Buffalo, New York - the building and its elaborate ornamentation were designed by the early modernist Architect
Louis Sullivan. An early example of the steel-frame skyscraper, the building is regarded as an important precedent for modern high-rise structures in the United States.
