Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building.

Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building. Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Louis Sullivan (architect).

1899–1903 C.E. Iron, steel, glass, and terra cotta.

• Chicago’s downtown neighborhoods
• Building with large glass windows and a rounded corner entryway covered with lavish decoration stands out. 
• In contrast to its relatively plain neighbors, the pedestrian’s eye is immediately attracted to the structure’s bronze-colored ground floor and broad white façade stretching twelve stories above it. A department store. 
• Sullivan’s building is an important example of early Chicago skyscraper architecture; relationship between architecture and commerce.
•  Uniquely American blend of Art Nouveau decoration with a simplified monumentality. 
• For Sullivan, the characteristic feature of a skyscraper was that it was tall, and so the building’s design should serve that goal by emphasizing its upward momentum.
•  Instead of emphasizing identical windows meant to reflect the identical work taking place in each individual office, in the Carson Pirie Scott building, Sullivan highlighted instead the lower street-level section and entryway to draw shoppers into the store from all directions. 
• The cast-iron ornament contains the same highly complicated, delicate, organic and floral motifs that had become hallmarks of Sullivan’s design aesthetic.