Dankmar Adler's Response to Louis Sullivan's “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered”: Architecture and the “Four Causes”

In critiquing Louis Sullivan's "The Tall Building Artistically Considered," his former partner Dankmar Adler pointed out that "form follows function" was an incomplete description of how architectural form evolves from the complex web of functions, materials, and techniques available to the designer and builder. In comments to the American Institute of Architects in late 1896, Adler set an alternative agenda, noting that environment, which Adler took to include the technical and sociocultural milieu of a project, plays an important role in the dialogues, negotiations, and compromises that ultimately inform building design.