Now Augie March, was: TRP-related (by me at least)..from a review

[David Morris]

My point (and Sullivan's) was that this "throwback" was a regressive
fantasy, and Monte's pointing out that "Dreamland" on Coney Island was
inspired by Chicago's embrace of that fantasy is the perfect example
(and perfect name) of that fact.  Sullivan was one of the first
American modernists (also mentor, and early employer of FL Wright),
and as such he wanted architecture (and culture in general) to express
the "truth" of the present and aspire to the future.  This difference
of attitude is akin to the difference between the Statue of Liberty
and the Eiffel Tower.  Both are gigantic steel-frames.  One expresses
that fact.  The other covers it up with poetic illusion.  You know,
many in Paris thought the Eiffel Tower was a hideous blemish on the
city when it was first built.  When you say that within Chicago's fake
old-style buildings was all the "progress," I think of the steel
frames underneath what was literally a paper-mache covering.

Sullivan:  all sense of reality was gone. In its place, had come deep
seated illusions, hallucinations, [...] progressive cerebral
meningitis

David Morris

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 8:52 AM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>Yes, it was a throwback to the architecture of Greece and Rome but that's what the world was doing (as indicated by Sullivan's comment.)   Meanwhile,  within those old buildings was all the "progress" American and others wanted to show off from Frederick Turner to electricity and the progress of  industrial revolution,  the women's building,  the ferris wheel,  foods,  etc.     It was kind of the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome housing the seeds of Western industrial domination.