The Wainwright Building is a ten-story office building in St. Louis, Missouri, designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and completed in 1891 for a group of investors led by the brewer Ellis Wainwright. Built on a steel frame, its facade is organized into a clear base, shaft and capital, with continuous brick piers running up the shaft to emphasize verticality above the ground-floor storefronts and below an ornamented terra cotta cornice. Sullivan's design for the building became a touchstone for his dictum that form follows function, treating the steel-frame skyscraper as a new architectural type rather than a tall version of older masonry forms. The building is a National Historic Landmark and remains in use as an office building today.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Designed By
Designed by Louis Sullivan of Adler and Sullivan, a landmark early skyscraper.
In Style
A defining early example of the Chicago School of skyscraper design.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.