Dankmar Adler was an American architect, designer. A prominent early architect in the Midwest, Mr. Adler began practice in Chicago prior to the great fire of 1871, but his most successful years came later in association with the late Louis Sullivan when the firm won wide recognition.
Background
Dankmar Adler was born on 3 July in 1844 in Stadtlengsfeld, Thuringia, Germany. His father, rabbi Liebman Adler, named him by compounding the German word for thanks, dank, with the Hebrew word for bitter, mar, for Adler’s mother had died at his birth. At the age of ten, Adler emigrated with his father to America.
Education
Adler's family migrated to America and lived in Detroit, where Adler received a public school education and began his architectural career.
Career
In 1861, Adler and his father moved to Chicago, where rabbi Adler headed Congregation Anshe Ma’ariv. Adler worked as a draftsman for Augustus Bauer until the start of the Civil War, when he fought in the Union army, participating in campaigns in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia before finishing his commission as a draftsman in the Topographical Engineers in Tennessee.
After the war Adler worked for Bauer and then for O. S. Kinney; in 1871, he formed a partnership with Edward Burling. He and Burling designed over one hundred buildings in their first year together, their success due in part to repairing and replacing the damage caused by the Chicago fire.
Adler formed his own architectural firm in 1879 and completed his first important project, the Central Music Hall in Chicago, that same year. This project, which allowed him to make use of his knowledge of acoustics, led to other commissions for theaters, and to a position as an acoustic consultant for Carnegie Hall.
Louis Sullivan became Adler’s partner in 1881. The two men complemented each other perfectly; Sullivan handled the creative design work, while Adler managed the engineering and administrative work. They became known for modern style buildings that were original in design. Frank Lloyd Wright trained in their office. Sullivan designed the bold unifying designs for buildings such as the Wainright in Saint Louis (1890-1891), and Adler devised the mechanical and structural means to make the designs work.
Adler wrote many articles concerning the technical and legal aspects of architecture. He was politically active, fighting for the reform of building codes in Chicago and drafting proposals for state regulation of the architectural profession.
Adler was also active in professional associations, serving as the first treasurer of the Western Association of Architects and as the organization’s president the following year. He was treasurer of the newly formed Illinois Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture.
The economic depression of 1893 took its toll on the architectural profession, causing Adler to leave Sullivan in 1895. He then worked as consulting architect and sales manager for an elevator company, but after six months returned to architecture. On his own. Adler never received another significant commission but continued to design small projects and write articles and papers. His last architectural project was the Isaiah Temple in Chicago, completed one year before his death.