Via correspondent Justin Luety, we offer up shots he's recently taken of Louis Sullivan's last commission, the 1922 facade for the Krause Music Store.
The building itself was designed by William C. Presto, who several years earlier had been sent to assist Sullivan as a draftsman for the construction of the Farmers and Merchants Union Bank in Columbus, Wisconsin. According to Sullivan biographer Robert Twombley, the facade project cost $3770, and the commission from the project provided Sullivan income at a time when he was in a desperate financial free fall that would end only with his 1924 death in a converted linen closet at the Warner Hotel.
The Krause Music Store, in the 4600 block of north Lincoln, is a designated Chicago landmark. Luety informs us that scaffolding has just been removed, and that the facade, its terra cotta ripe to bursting with Sullivan's distinctive ornament, has never looked better. A full set of pictures can be found on Justin's own blog, Urbs in Horto, which also includes photo sets on Hyatt Center at 71 south Wacker, Frank Gehry's Pritzker bandshell, and on the Graceland Cemetary markers for Sullivan and John Wellborn Root, among others.
But what exactly was the work? Just cleaning?
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