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Krause Music Store

Architect
William Presto and Louis H. Sullivan
Year
1922
City
Chicago, IL
Collection
adler & sullivan
Krause Music Store
Photo: unknown, Attribution
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Louis Sullivan designed the facade of the Krause Music Store in 1922, the last of the 126 buildings he worked on before his death, commissioned by William P. Krause for a combined residence and music shop at 4611 North Lincoln Avenue at a total construction cost of $22,000. Krause hired his neighbor, architect William Presto, a former Sullivan draftsman, to design the building, and Presto in turn brought in his old boss, then ill and insolvent, to design the ornamental terra cotta front.

the building

The terra cotta facade. Sullivan's facade is built around curvilinear, plant-like forms in green terra cotta, furnished by the American Terra Cotta Company for $3,770, framing the picture window with the geometric and organic ornament that had become his signature.

Store and residence combined. Krause commissioned the building to serve two purposes at once: a ground-floor shop that opened selling pianos and sheet music, with residential space above, rather than a freestanding storefront.

the style

The facade is an outgrowth of Sullivan's belief in organic architecture — ornament grown from natural, plant-like forms rather than borrowed from historical styles — expressed here through curvilinear terra cotta framing the store's picture window.

the architect

William Presto designed the building itself; years earlier he had worked as a draftsman for Louis Sullivan, and it was Presto who brought his former employer in to design the facade. For Sullivan, by then ill health and without steady income, the Krause Music Store's terra cotta front, completed in 1922, was his last commission of a 126-building career.

significance

The Krause Music Store was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977, protections tied directly to its status as Louis Sullivan's final design.

nearby

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