[317]. It is so generally assumed that Sullivan’s mature style is without historical antecedents that the even more definitely quattrocento character of the entrance here, as well as of those of the Guaranty Building, is rarely noted.
[318]. The five southernmost bays are an addition made in 1906 by D. H. Burnham & Co. They follow, with some slight diminution in the bay-width, Sullivan’s original design.
The form of the Burnham firm’s name in these years is significant of the increasing anonymity of architectural practice in America as the scale of operation increased (see Chapter [24]).
[319]. See Purcell and Elmslie Architects (Walker Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue), Minneapolis, 1953, and Gebhard, D., ‘Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIX (1960), 62-8, and A Guide to the Existing Architecture of Purcell and Elmslie, Roswell, N. M., 1960.
[320]. Of more interest than the skyscraper is a smaller and earlier Singer Building, also by Flagg. Flagg was one American who retained contact with the French tradition of exposed metal construction as well as with the academic aspects of ‘Beaux Arts’ design as his first Singer Building illustrates.
[321]. See Schuyler, M., ‘The Work of N. LeBrun & Sons’, Architectural Record, XXVII (1910), 365-80. The Metropolitan Tower is, of course, the work of a firm not of a single architect; LeBrun himself had been dead for some years.
[322]. See Schuyler, M., ‘“The Towers of Manhattan” and Notes on the Woolworth Building’, Architectural Record, XXX (1913), 98-122.