Explore the stunning work of the poet of the modern skyscraper, Louis Sullivan, on a unique private tour with Off the Map Chicago Tours. We'll start in my private music studio in the storied Fine Arts Building by S.S. Beman, where Frank Lloyd Wright twice had a studio. Then we'll explore Louis Sullivan's architectural genius in the Auditorium building next door as we begin our private walk. As Frank Lloyd Wright's leiber meister, or beloved mentor, Louis Sullivan developed the concept of organic architecture and ornamentation, summarizing his clean, modern form of architecture with the phrase, 'form ever follows function. The firm of Adler & Sullivan created some of the finest examples of Chicago's early 20th century modern architecture, and it was Louis Sullivan who refused to design a classical building for the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, offering instead an Asian-inspired architectural contrast: the Transportation Building with its Golden Door. Viewing the miles upon miles of classical buildings of the great fair, Louis Sullivan is said to have remarked, 'This will set back the course of modern architecture by a half-century.

Off the Map Chicago Tours takes you on your own private architectural walk through the history of the modern skyscraper, including a stop at Louis Sullivan's greatest surviving building in Chicago: the Carson Pirie Scott store, now called the Sullivan Center. In 1899, Sullivan was commissioned to design the Schlesinger and Mayer department store on west Madison Street. Two years later, he was asked to design a unique addition that brought the store west to the corner of Madison and State Streets. The result was a unique architectural form showcasing Sullivan's genius for ornamental organic design with a sleek modern structure. The base is dark cast iron, with a dramatic rounded tower at the corner of the busy intersection. Rising above the cast iron first floor of store show windows is a horizontal grid of steel frame clad in white terra cotta with Chicago-style windows, topped off with a beautiful cornice. Two more additions by other architects in the same style brought the building further south down State Street, making it more horizontal than Sullivan's original two architectural statements. The building later became the flagship store of Carson Pirie Scott, and is now being fully restored as a retail, office and educational space for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Visit Oak Park and River Forest on your very own unique private architecture tour with Off the Map Chicago Tours. We'll design a combination walking/driving private tour that takes in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Prairie style associates. We'll visit Unity Temple, Frank Lloyd Wright's revolutionary Unitarian church, and if you like, we can arrange for you to take a public tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park as part of your day. Then join me on a private architecture walk and drive to view Prairie houses in the beautiful suburbs where the Prairie house rocked Victorian sensibilities while revolutionizing American domestic architecture. Oak Park and River Forest boasts a unique collection of the amazing architecture of the Prairie style, and you can see it all with Off the Map Chicago Tours.

When Louis Sullivan dismissed Frank Lloyd Wright in 1893 from Adler & Sullivan for moonlighting [although Frank Lloyd Wright always maintained it was time to leave], the young genius struck out on his own with his first independent commission: the William Winslow House in River Forest. Not only did the Winslow House shock its Victorian neighbors, it set the stage for Frank Lloyd Wright's first architectural period, the Prairie style. Using unique materials to domestic architecture, like Roman-style brick and a massive hip roof dominated by its central horizontal chimney, Frank Lloyd Wright proceeds to break apart the traditional Victorian house he dismissed as a box, with holes let in light and air. Though the Winslow House presents a strikingly formal appearance to the street, showing Frank Lloyd Wright's discipline and genius for geometric form, the back side of the house explodes into new, unique forms of architecture that will eventually gain international attention when the first Prairie houses emerge from his drawing table just eight years later. Off the Map Chicago Tours can show you the Winslow House by Frank Lloyd Wright, and many other architectural examples, on a unique, private tour of River Forest and Oak Park, where Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked for 20 years.

When the Unitarian church in Oak Park burned in 1905, one member of its congregation, a local architect named Frank Lloyd Wright, was asked to design a new church. What rose up was a steeple-less, poured concrete structure that early critics derided as an ice house, but today remains one of the finest public spaces in the world. Unity Temple is an example of the spatial genius of Frank Lloyd Wright. Just entering the building presents an intriguing invitation to discover what's inside. And once inside, the visitor discovers two cubes joined by a central reception area: a hall for worship, and a smaller room for congregation meetings. Inside the intimate worship hall, Frank Lloyd Wright strongly urges congregation members to look into each others' eyes by arranging seating on three sides, so neighbor faces neighbor. And in a unique turn, Wright designs the two exit doors so that, after services, worshippers file out together, as a community, past the minister, instead of turning their backs on the altar as in the more traditional form of church. And why is there no steeple? Let me explain that one to you on a unique private tour of Oak Park and Unity Temple with Off the Map Chicago Tours.

Visit one of Louis Sullivan's only surviving buildings on a private tour with Off the Map Chicago Tours. In a unique combination of hotel, theatre and offices, Adler & Sullivan's massive Auditorium Building is considered one of the earliest examples of modern architecture. Because it's just you and me--not a large group wearing radio transmitters to hear the docent--we can explore nooks and crannies of this architectural marvel, including restored Louis Sullivan interior details. I'll share stories with you of the Auditorium building's rise and fall, and how it was saved to be transformed into a healthy, active building with a theatre, the renowned Auditorium Theatre, that thrives today, most notably as the home of the Joffrey Ballet. I'll even show you where I took piano lessons there when I was a kid.

In 1901, Frank Lloyd Wright unveiled a new form of house that, simply put, revolutionized the world. A private, simply, yet elegantly, detailed form arose from the flat Midwestern prairie. A writer would later name it the Prairie house. Frank Lloyd Wright would not disagree. As courageous clients asked the Oak Park-based Frank Lloyd Wright to design them a beautiful home in the Prairie style, their not-so-forward thinking neighbors would dismiss Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces as funny houses. And while these Prairie houses, with their massive hip roofs, sheltering eaves, broad chimneys signaling cozy hearths deep inside, and unique entries that said privacy with a capital P, may have seemed odd in 1901, or even 1910, today they are still modern. And, as in the case of Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, still revolutionary. On a unique private walking/driving tour with Off the Map Chicago Tours, I'll show you just about all of them, from Oak Park and River Forest in the west part of the Chicago, all the way up the North Shore of Lake Michigan, to the very first and very unique Prairie house: the Ward Willits house. By the way, did you know that a critic wrote of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style creations that they provide a safe and secure harbor to its residents battered about the uncharted seas of modern life. Hmmm. Sounds like something we could use today.