An architects' notion of architecture is often shaped by ideas stated by thinkers and writers not in the field. In many cases, these ideas forming the basis for an architect's thinking were stated by previous generations rather than by people contemporaneous with the architect. Architects often receive those ideas not from new publications but from what one may call “an accepted common culture.” Such was the case with Louis Sullivan (1856-1924).

The purpose of the course is to come to an understanding of influences helping to shape Sullivan's architectural iconography and iconology. While German, French, and American authors will be considered during the first half of the course, the thrust of the second half of the semester will focus on a single text of the twentieth-century Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri (1898-1983), a scholar Sullivan never read. This seminar will accept as a premise the discrimination Zubiri established between the meanings of the Latin word *imago* and the Greek term *eikon*, both meaning image. To Zubiri, imago refers to the outward appearance of visual symbols, what most art historians would call iconography, while, to him, eikon would concern the inner, experiential or transcendent meaning of the work, what is generally known as iconology. Inasmuch as ornamentation and composition are the major components of Sullivan's architecture (thus establishing a Ruskinian differentiation between architecture and construction), his buildings are extraordinary rich in meanings that touch upon American Whitmanesque romanticism as well as Emersonian and German transcendentalism. It is the translation of this corpus of ideas into one man's architectural work that will be at the core of our studies this semester.

Instructor's Consent Required for non-Art History majors and Graduate Students