Goin' to Graceland

Yesterday afternoon, on the last day of the year, I took a walk around Graceland Cemetery on the North Side of Chicago, the final resting place of many notable figures from Chicago's history.

I found the relatively modest tombstone of architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan had died poor, and the burial was paid for by fellow architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Ironically, Sullivan is buried behind the neoclassical colonnade of piano-maker William Kimball's monument. Sullivan detested this style, considering it to be a cheap copying of a European aesthetic.



It's hard to see in the picture, but the large, round medallion on the tombstone is covered in the kind of intricate geometric designs that are characteristic of Sullivan's work.