Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings

Kindergarten Chats and other writings by Louis H. Sullivan George Wittenborn. Originally published in 1917. Editorial Note: The printing of the unpublished revision of Kindergarten Chats in this volume carries out at last Louis Sullivans wish that his work be issued in book form his Foreword., written in July 1918, is our authority. That no publisher was found during the six remaining years of Ms life., and that a good deal of vagueness and misunderstanding arose concerning Sullivans attitude to this work as well as with regard to the existence and condition of a revised manuscript reflects the com monplace that human nature and scholarship are inextricably bound together. Sullivan believed that a building represented an act,, and that such an act re vealed the man behind it, the mind and ethics of the architect, more conclusively and unerringly than any statement. In this sense, the fifty-two consecutive essays entitled Kindergarten Chats are an act, requiring no officious introduction or inter pretation. Nevertheless, a few general remarks should be made to suggest the nature and significance of Sullivans editing of 1918, particularly since the first version published serially in 1901 is available only in a few obscure files, and that edited by Claude Bragdon in 1934 is out of print. From June to October 1918, Sullivan worked over the manuscript and produced the text which follows, and which therefore represents its definitive form. The actual manuscript gives the impression that Sullivan revised in the exact meaning of the word, that he gave attention to every sentence and paragraph, that his alterations of word and phrase, his cutting and rewriting, were the product of genuine reconsid eration and a desire for greater clarity. The redundant or unprecise adjective was discarded the specific term was substituted for the more general or the vague one repetitive passages were deleted. Throughout this revision and the text here pub lished was prepared directly from the original manuscript it may be said that the secondary has been sacrificed to the primary...