Sullivan's Spell

Chicago hosts some of the world’s most iconic and innovative commercial buildings designed by pioneering architects. There is one architect; in particular, who was considered one of the most influential forces in the Chicago School of architecture in the late 1800s. His simple geometric forms were accentuated with ornamental designs of organic nature in stone, wood and terra cotta and always adhered to the philosophy that form should always follow function.  Often called the “father of the skyscraper” and the “prophet of modern architecture”, his name was Louis Sullivan.

His work left its mark on Chicago and other Midwestern cities, and inspired many architects, in particular, Frank Lloyd Wright who had spent more than six years as Sullivan’s draftsman before going on to advance  Sullivan’s idea of architecture into his Prairie Houses, and more generally, the Prairie School of the early 1900s. But during the period of urban renewal in the 1960’s, Sullivan’s countless structures which had been neglected were being threatened with demolition. Fortunately, Sullivan’s authentic architecture had cast a spell on a photographer named Richard Nickel, who documented with photographs each structure’s unique art form, shedding light on the need for its preservation, believing that buildings were an important part of the city's architectural and cultural heritage. His attempts at saving Sullivan’s structures were not successful. He started resurrecting terra cotta from the condemned buildings and tragically died in the Chicago Stock Exchange when a floor fell on him.  While many buildings were demolished, Nickel’s passion to salvage Sullivan’s work had transferred to architectural enthusiasts and historical preservationists, ultimately saving some of Sullivan’s buildings. In Chicago, The Auditorium Building, (now Roosevelt University) with its Romanesque façade, still stands as an immense masterpiece of engineering, design, and acoustics. The Carson, Pirie, Scott store is exquisitely detailed with Sullivan’s leafy adornments and on the southeast corner of Astor and Schiller Streets rests the Charnely House with its copper cornices and simple geometric motifs found at the rooflines of both the house and balcony.

Many years later, in 2004, Sullivan’s work and life story gave birth to another kindred spirit, a man who became so spellbound by Sullivan that he was determined to create a documentary about his legacy. His name is Mark Richard Smith. The irony? He had never made a film before.  Prior to moving Chicago, Smith owned a graphic design firm in Texas that specialized in direct marketing, corporate identity, logo design, and corporate literature.  Self-taught, without having gone to art school, Smith became an incredibly successful businessman, but his real passion was history. In his mid-40’s, Smith took a leap of faith and moved to Chicago to study American history with a focus in urban history. “Being in Chicago and studying urban history, you can’t get much better than that, such rich history,” Smith said. While he was researching his thesis on early 20th century housing discrimination on the South Side, he saw a book by Richard Cahan showcasing Nickel's photography of Sullivan’s work. “Sullivan touched me as a designer, as a commercial artist, and a sentimentalist. I wanted to find out more about this guy. I was fascinated by him and what he represented.” He felt compelled to tell Sullivan’s story and couldn’t believe that no one had ever done a film about his life and career. “I had always loved documentaries. I loved the visual presentation of history and its relationship to architecture. It just fused in an involuntary way,” he explained. “I loved film,” he continued, “the sense of visual design. When you feel passionate about the subject, the mechanics of making a film are easy,” he explained. Just like Sullivan, Smith was a renegade. He decided not to go the traditional route and depend on foundation support. “I came from a business background,” he said.  “I know there is an audience out there. I had the money, so I used my own money.”

In the late summer of 2007, Smith was scouting Sullivan's surviving body of work for his film. One of them was the Wainwright building in Saint Louis.  A few days before, he was in Iowa and Wisconsin going to banks in small towns. When he arrived in St. Louis on September 9th he saw the building and that night in his hotel room he woke up with a radiating pain – a radiating burning - in his chest. He thought it was a bad case of heartburn or stress. His left arm was getting heavy and by the time the EMT got there, he had nausea and broke out in a cold sweat. At the hospital, the doctor informed Smith that he had a heart attack. While Smith knew that he had high cholesterol, he was very athletic and never overweight and was under the firm conviction that a good diet could manage that. In hindsight, he feels stress may have been a part of what triggered the attack. The fast-paced environment of his graphic design firm for ten years coupled with the pressure to perform and being a people pleaser could have been contributing factors. A blood clot had formed because cholesterol had burst through the wall of a coronary artery. Ultimately, Smith did not have to have surgery. They catheterized Smith with a medicated stent.

Not letting this attack deter him, Smith plowed ahead with an accelerated force to finish his film. “When I was lying in the hospital, after I recovered, I thought, I don’t know how much time I’ve got. If I’m going to do anything meaningful in this life, I need to do this film. I’ve been producing disposable creative stuff for ten years, stuff that eventually ends up in the garbage. It’s not changing anybody’s life. I want to make a difference in some little way. And, I don’t care about the cost.”

Smith completed cardiac rehab within 90 days of his heart attack and having this project really helped him in terms of his attitude about the future. “It gave me a purpose,” he said. “The heart attack scared me, but the ironic thing was that it also really started my life over. It hit the reset button.” 

Completing the film cost Smith his life savings, but it was do or die. Smith stated, “Sullivan died embittered, he felt that he had been disregarded and he wasn’t getting his fair share of success." If Sullivan could have seen Nickel’s ode to his structures through his photographs and witnessed his heroic attempts at salvaging his trademark ornamental pieces and Smith’s tribute to him via a documentary and how he defied all odds to make the film, he would have recognized not only two kindred spirits, but would have been very touched to know that his body of work did matter and that generations all around the world, do indeed, still revere this “artist against the herd.”