Issue Seven

Let’s try to paint the storyboard. It’s 1888. The young urban professionals are wearing bowler hats with tweed and we are in Chicago–no doubt you ladies are donning flowered hats above your ankle length skirts replete with corset and waistcoat (you also are of course not allowed to work yet). It’s a few years after the great fire, that historical creditor due to which there is a great expanse of scaffolding on the horizon, with widespread rebuilding about the city in general. The scene now shifts, panning up a few floors into a large open office space, the midday sun illuminates long rows of oak drafting tables. Along with the fresh air coming in from our sunny windows is that wonderful urban din of a healthy city–the clip-clop of hoofs through mud and across cobblestone, footfalls, cooing pigeons, distant bells, murmured voices, laughter, hatred, camaraderie, and the clatter of machinery.

Within our large office there are three souls quietly working atop the wood floor. The first two, gathered around a desk, have been working through lunch to finish some blueprinting. The last gentleman stayed at his desk to study for entrance exams. Words are spoken when this last fellow, a brute by some accounts, comes charging at one of the others with a matte knife in hand! He gets a rough hold of his rival, puts him in a lock with one arm, and starts stabbing the blade into the man’s back. Now, if this doesn’t sound like grounds for at least one of their dismissal, or a serious case of when good office politics go bad, we can say with some certainty it’s darn unprofessional! Viewed through our own day’s standards of ‘political correctness’ and ‘printed office policy,’ especially so. Yet it did happen–and is all the more fantastic to those of us in Buffalo–for not only is the man taking the knife in the back named Frank Lloyd Wright, but the office it did happen in was that of Louis Sullivan.

It’s a freakish tale, and in the foolish hope of extracting–albeit entertainingly–a usable lesson regarding one’s proper conduct in a modern office from it, perhaps we can deduce some useful do’s and don’ts for the modern young urban professional who eagerly wishes to avoid both the actual, as well as figurative, ‘knife in the back.’ Toward this end, a little background on the office political structure involving our two local giants of Architecture–Sullivan and Wright–is likely good a start as any.

At the tail end of the nineteenth century, Louis Sullivan was but 27 years old and nonetheless a full partner to an architect-engineer by the name of Dankmar Adler. In the space between 1887-95, this dynamic duo would receive nearly ninety commissions for buildings–and this was an office specializing in commercial jobs. In other words, no little residences or small fees based on small construction costs. With their Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York opening in 1896 to unanimous critical acclaim, Adler & Sullivan could easily be called the Frank Gehry of their day; soon specializing not only the building from which would become the staple upon which so many subsequent architects’ offices would rely, but in no small measure the firm which invented the very type itself–the skyscraper. By all accounts Sullivan, son of a poor Irishman and raised by an Irish nanny, was a prodigy. A graduate of MIT, he studied at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris and ‘broke in’ with the likes of another celebrity in American Architecture, Frank Furness. By 1879, the young Sullivan had made his way to Chicago to hang with some of this country’s foremost architectural theoreticians and experimental builders. There at the age of 23, he sought out and joined Adler. He made partner but three years later.

 In a profession rightly reserved for the old, it would seem that his rapid success as a young architect was the circumstance leading him to Wright and Wright to he. This begins with Sullivan’s ranking position in an office composed of draftsmen and designers nearly, if not actually older than he, being a notorious source of friction. In fact, one recorded instance at Adler & Sullivan involves the architect coming up behind a young draftsman working on a design to ask, “What the Hell do you call that?!” The trembling young fellow packed up his pencils and headed straight out the door (one might say Sullivan went through draftsmen as quickly as Wright went through women). So it came to pass that interviewing for a new draftsman at the firm of Adler & Sullivan had become far too routine an event–and was how young Wright would wiggle his way into what was the office of the day.

As for Wright, he was the rural son of Welsh immigrants settled in Wisconsin. With a deep tradition of academic excellence, this family was almost exclusively composed of educators and preachers, and not just your run of the day reverends, but biblical scholars–cream of the crop you might say. Thus when Wright quit school at the University of Wisconsin in 1887 to take off for Chicago, it undoubtably did not sit too well with the folks at home. Yet, at nineteen years old, he landed a drafting position at a little known firm, made rent, and was only there for a short time when he heard that Sullivan needed a fresh man. Secretly he went to interview and, of course, landed the gig.

Life under Sullivan’s employ could almost not have gone better for Wright, but as far as office politics went concerning Sullivan’s problem with junior staff, things only got worse with Wright in the mix. Now, not only did the workforce have to deal with being second to a partner without any gray on his head, they also had to contend with his new protégé. From day one Wright was Sullivan’s hand and officially the ‘senior design architect’ in the office after Sullivan–and of course Adler (whose own part in most projects tended more toward the engineering than the architectural). This didn’t sit well with an office full of egos produced through an architectural education. And it was a problem only exacerbated by the reality that both Sullivan and Wright were the only two Celts in an office mainly of German Jewish staff placed by Dankmar Adler. It may be uncomfortable for us to imagine given how far our country has come with regards to such issues, and thank heavens we have, but the hard reality of America in this period involved such prejudices. But leaving questions of paranoia and Semitism unanswered, it’s very clear in Wright’s Autobiography that this was his take on the office, which was made even more volatile given one of this firm’s bizarre little customs.

As we all know, most every office has its own flavor, something native making it unique. Examples might include many staff owning boats, or being golfers, or even season ticket holders to the theatre. In Adler & Sullivan’s case, somehow during the lunch break an odd habit evolved long before Wright even got to the office. It was boxing–in the blueprint room, over lunch, for sport. Hard to imagine in our time, professionals donning gloves to duke it out in the copy room over coffee and sandwiches, but we know it occurred. Nevertheless, once Wright moved in and his kinship with Sullivan forged, the office political arena quickly polarized to involve Wright, Sullivan, and a draftsman hired to keep Wright company, so to speak, versus all.

The politicking started with the basics; taunts and some hat tossing down the stairs, and no doubt all the other little ways which coworkers can make one’s life miserable when they choose. Sullivan himself was of course strictly ‘out of bounds’ with Wright thus bearing the brunt and picking up the nickname ‘Sullivan’s Toady.’ Hence, the office soon conspired to get him by creating a hostile work environment designed to goad an unthinking Wright into the rear room for a boxing bout. According to Wright, despite his rural upbringing on a farm with the hard labor native to it, his rather dandy-like appearance gave the impression of an easy target. But rather than be rash, Wright slyly arranged a clandestine series of twelve boxing lessons at noon with one Colonel Monsterry down in ‘the Old Athenaeum’–all over the course of two weeks. In fact, when Wright went to enroll the old colonel strongly pushed the idea of foils instead, it being ‘a more gentlemanly game.’ But, not knowing the situation, the old man was pressured to provide the boxing guidance originally requested.

Once finished with the Colonel’s lessons, and about two months into his tenure at the office, the baiting and insults had escalated into a fairly open affair. One day at lunch, as the gang began to shuffle off to the back room Wright coyly asked one of them, “Boxing this noon?” ‘Sure, come on in’ they grinningly offered, assuring they would ‘go easy on him.’ So in they went and Wright bloodily beat the hell out of no less than two, and this might have been the end of the story–but tactically he messed up by losing his temper. Unable to stay calm above the fray, the young Wright threw off his gloves and baited the lot of them for a true bare-knuckle brawl. No one would have a part of it, and for a very good reason…the biggest one of the bunch, a guy named Ottenheimer or Ottie for short, was out that day.

The tale goes that this Ottie, the following day, hears the story, and begins escalating the ride on Wright. About two weeks go by and it’s noon again. Wright is in the aforementioned empty drafting room with a colleague, his lone ally in the whole joint, and Ottie is at his desk studying for an entrance exam to the Ecole. Ottie would look up occasionally and spout his usual jibes and taunts while Wright and this fellow, named George Elmslie, were collating some drawings. Wright apparently decided it was ‘time’ and the story goes that he simply got up from his desk, said “I’ve had enough from you,” and nailed Ottenheimer in the face. Sucker punched off his stool and onto the floor, with his glasses no less than smashed, Ottie might easily have been blinded! He then jumps right back up, grabs one of the matte knives laying about the office, and charges Wright. The two of them got each other in a sort of reciprocal head lock, apparently Wright punching Ottenheimer, and he stabbing Wright, as blood pours down Wright’s back to soak his shoes (they were said to squish as they struggled). Somehow Wright improved his hold and was able to throw the guy back and into a wall. Ottie slips, falls, drops, picks up the blade, and charges again. With him coming, Wright then grabs a T-Square off a nearby desk, swings full bore and levels the guy. He hits him so hard the head snapps clear off as it caught him in the neck, and ol’ Ottie drops out cold. Now this Elmslie, who’s witnessing everything, is apparently motionless and dumb, whereupon Wright yells out “Good God I’ve killed him, George! Get some water quick.” The two revive the guy, who, now tail between his legs, vows to ‘get Wright’ and storms out never to be heard from again. End of story? Pretty much, for Wright goes on about his business in the coming months and years, only to eventually tick off Sullivan by moonlighting on residences–built, no less, in Sullivan’s own neighborhood! Only then does Sullivan famously fire him for this.

It’s hard to imagine one’s boss deciding that, upon returning from lunch and finding a pool of blood, the circumstances do not constitute grounds for dismissal, but if this Sullivan-Wright precedent is to be used as a guide, it suggests three potential political lessons for the young urban professional. First, provide that you are sure to possess the talent of a Frank Lloyd Wright, and carry on as your appetites dictate. Second, if this is not a realistic objective, become the ‘go to guy’ for an enfant terrible of a principal who absolutely has no one else to turn to. Either way your job is safe. Third and last, even if battery in the office goes uncensured, never rub another man’s rhubarb, especially in his own backyard.

Helped by two degrees from Buffalo’s State University School of Architecture, Thomas Turturro has lived in New York for the past several years while working as a designer for firms including Kohn Pedersen Fox (Buffalo International Airport 1997) and Skidmore Owings & Merrill (Albright Knox Addition 1962). As an author with works published on topics including classicism, metaphor, and the writings of Hegel, he has recently resumed his residence in Buffalo and is now designing for the downtown firm of Tommaso Briatico Architects.