31 Oct louis h. sullivan’s owatonna bank: a building bursting with ornament

documenting louis sullivan’s national famers’ bank of owatonna (1908) was exhausting. pouring over and carefully selecting hundreds of images cataloging sullivan, millet, and elmslie’s ornament has left me with extreme eye fatigue. 
the ornament’s energy was intense, but at the same time, calming. hard to explain, so i won’t. it was a struggle to leave that room.

below are photographic images taken by richard nickel in the late 1950’s when he was still a student at the institute of design, early photo-postcards, and an original 1958 bank pamphlet of the bank’s exterior and interior around the time it was heavily remodeled.