By 1880 traditional American architectural values had broken down under a barrage of ornament and imported European styles. But at the same moment a new American architecture was taking shape to express the new wealth of post-Civil War America and its new social order. The next hundred years would see a succession of brilliant architects in Sullivan, Wright, Mies, Johnson and the pluralists of today. These individual successes only partially mask some major problems; both constitute the underlying themes of this course.
