ABSTRACT
Chicago was founded on a marshy bog between the Chicago and the Des Plaines Rivers. A second major innovation was invented by Chicagoan Cyrus McCormick in 1848, a mechanized reaper. It was no accident that this invention would spring from Chicago, the center of the Great Plains, America's fertile breadbasket. Into this vital atmosphere of Midwestern can-do spirit came Louis Sullivan. Sullivan apprenticed in Furness's office in Philadelphia for a brief time at the age of seventeen, and his later uniquely decorative panels might be attributed to Furness's influence. Frank Lloyd Wright was possibly the most prolific architect in America. Beyond housing, Wright did a number of corporate projects. The Johnson Wax Building was Wright's first robust use of the curved wall. Probably Wright's most famous nonresidential building is the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, New York. A discussion of Wright would be incomplete without a nod to his final work, the Marin County Civic Center, in California.
