Editing Modern architecture (section)

==Early American modernism (1890s–1914)==
{{see also|Frank Lloyd Wright}}
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File:William H. Winslow House Front Facade.jpg|[[William H. Winslow House]], by Frank Lloyd Wright, River Forest, Illinois (1893–94)
File:Oak park house2.jpg|The [[Arthur Heurtley House]] in Oak Park, Illinois (1902)
File:LarkinAdministrationBuilding1906.jpg|[[Larkin Administration Building]] by [[Frank Lloyd Wright]], [[Buffalo, New York]] (1904–1906)
File:Unity Temple - Oak Park IL 9 (3224132995).jpg|Interior of [[Unity Temple]] by [[Frank Lloyd Wright]], [[Oak Park, Illinois]] (1905–1908)
File:Frederick C. Robie House.JPG|The [[Robie House]] by [[Frank Lloyd Wright]], Chicago (1909)
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[[Frank Lloyd Wright]] was a highly original and independent American architect who refused to be categorized in any one architectural movement. Like [[Le Corbusier]] and [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]], he had no formal architectural training. From 1887 to 1893 he worked in the Chicago office of [[Louis Sullivan]], who pioneered the first tall steel-frame office buildings in Chicago, and who famously stated "[[form follows function]]".{{Sfn|Tietz|1999|page=16}} Wright set out to break all the traditional rules. He was particularly famous for his [[Prairie Houses]], including the [[Winslow House (River Forest, Illinois)|Winslow House]] in [[River Forest, Illinois]] (1893–94); [[Arthur Heurtley House]] (1902) and [[Robie House]] (1909); sprawling, geometric residences without decoration, with strong horizontal lines which seemed to grow out of the earth, and which echoed the wide flat spaces of the American prairie. His [[Larkin Administration Building|Larkin Building]] (1904–1906) in [[Buffalo, New York]], [[Unity Temple]] (1905) in [[Oak Park, Illinois]] and Unity Temple had highly original forms and no connection with historical precedents.{{Sfn|Bony|2012|pages=62–63}}

===Early skyscrapers===
{{Main|Early skyscrapers}}
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File:Home Insurance Building.JPG|[[Home Insurance Building]] in Chicago by [[William Le Baron Jenney]] (1883)
File:Prudential buffalo louis sullivan.jpg|[[Prudential (Guaranty) Building]] by [[Louis Sullivan]] in [[Buffalo, New York]] (1896)
File:Detroit Photographic Company (0645).jpg|The [[Flatiron Building]] in New York City (1903)
File:Carson Pirie Scott building, Chicago, Illinois - Louis Sullivan.jpg|The [[Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building]] in Chicago by [[Louis Sullivan]] (1904–1906)
File:Woolworth Building and City Hall Park, New York City 1910s retouched.png|The [[Woolworth Building]] and the New York skyline in 1913. It was modern on the inside but [[neo-Gothic]] on the outside.
File:WoolworthBuilding crop.jpg|The neo-Gothic crown of the [[Woolworth Building]] by [[Cass Gilbert]] (1912)
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At the end of the 19th century, the first [[skyscrapers]] began to appear in the United States. They were a response to the shortage of land and high cost of real estate in the center of the fast-growing American cities, and the availability of new technologies, including fireproof steel frames and improvements in the safety [[elevator]] invented by [[Elisha Otis]] in 1852. The first steel-framed "skyscraper", The [[Home Insurance Building]] in Chicago, was ten stories high. It was designed by [[William Le Baron Jenney]] in 1883, and was briefly the tallest building in the world. [[Louis Sullivan]] built another monumental new structure, the [[Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building]], in the heart of Chicago in 1904–1906. While these buildings were revolutionary in their steel frames and height, their decoration was borrowed from [[Renaissance Revival architecture|Neo-Renaissance]], [[Neo-Gothic]] and [[Beaux-Arts architecture]]. The [[Woolworth Building]], designed by [[Cass Gilbert]], was completed in 1912, and was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the [[Chrysler Building]] in 1929. The structure was purely modern, but its exterior was decorated with Neo-Gothic ornament, complete with decorative buttresses, arches and spires, which caused it to be nicknamed the "Cathedral of Commerce".{{Sfn|Burchard|Bush-Brown|1966|page=83}}