Elevator grille from the Chicago Stock Exchange (demolished 1972), Chicago, Illinois

Louis Sullivan

c. 1893–1894

Wrought and cast iron

Dallas Museum of Art

The Chicago Stock Exchange was one of the last major commissions of the architectural firm of Adler & Sullivan before the partnership was dissolved in 1895. Louis Sullivan, a leading proponent of then-new skyscrapers and stylized architectural ornament based upon nature, designed these elevator grilles for use on the third to thirteenth floors of the Exchange. The oval shapes were conceived of as "seed germs," the basis of life, an idea to which he had first referred in his 1886 prose-poem "Inspiration." storage