Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan: Personal Histories of Two Icons of American Architecture

Peers, foils, colleagues, and rivals—Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan’s impact on each other still expresses itself in architectural masterworks that anchor Chicago’s cityscape. Trygve Thoreson’s parallel biography places their lives and careers within a panoramic history of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Thoreson delves into their influences while bringing to life the social, intellectual, and cultural milieus of their time. Unearthing a wealth of personal details, Thoreson pays particular attention to the influences that formed Burnham and Sullivan and shaped not only their designs but their conception of themselves as artists. He also examines the confluence of historical forces that pulled the two men together and pushed them apart—a fruitful back-and-forth that built surprising links into their work and steered world architecture in bold new directions.

An engaging piece of nonfiction storytelling, Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan reveals new facets of the architects’ personal, intellectual, and artistic lives.