An exhibit at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago explores two lost architectural masterworks: the Garrick Theatre Building in Chicago designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building in Buffalo. Curated by John Vinci, Tim Samuelson, Eric Nordstrom, Chris Ware and Jonathan D. Katz, “Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright” uses fragments, drawings, photography, and narrative to elucidate the life and death of these two iconic buildings.
The first section of the exhibit, “Reconstructing the Garrick,” highlights the many connections between the Adler and Sullivan’s design of the Garrick Theatre Building, which opened in 1892 as the Schiller Theatre, and their contemporary work on the polychromatic Transportation Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
“The Transportation Building celebrated the essence of its plaster skin … Adler & Sullivan’s building seemed almost to glow with its palette of 44 brilliant colors,” writes Samuelson for the exhibit label. “The Schiller Theatre could arguably be considered analogous to its fair counterpart—albeit one turned inside out.”
Included in a case of artifacts relating to the Schiller Theater and the eras of its operation is a piece of sheet music relating to the 1893 World’s Fair.
One highlight of the exhibition is a video showing a digital reconstruction of the Garrick Theatre inside and out. The quality and detail of this magnificent walk-through experience showcases the possibilities for more recreations of lost architectural masterpieces … including, we can hope, those of the 1893 White City.