Wright went to work for Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler for their Chicago Architecture Firm. At the time, the firm was working on the Auditorium Building, one of the many skyscrapers erected in the Chicago skyline when the giant buildings were shaping the future of the architectural world (8). 

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/chisull/audangle.jpg

Wright was originally hired to draw ornament for the buildings because Sullivan believed that “all design –whether ornament or architecture—was founded upon natural laws.” (9).  Most of the work Wright did at the firm was “out of office hours” or bootlegged commissions, jobs were mainly domestic and Adler and Sullivan weren’t interested in (10).  One of the biggest rewards that Wright gained from working at a large architectural firm was the day-to-day details and fast- paced work of dealing with so many clients. For Wright, Sullivan was one of the few architects whom was “striving for original style,” but in the end did not agree with Sullivan’s ideas on form and function.  Sullivan believed in the concept of “form follows function”, but Wright liked the concept of “form and function are one,” always striving for beauty in his work.  In 1893, Chicago was home to the World’s Columbian Exposition which was under the architectural guidance of Daniel H. Burnham; one of Sullivan’s biggest rivals.  Wright agreed with Sullivan when he stated that the world’s fair was a set back in architectural design.  Sullivan and Wright believed that it was a setback in the new direction that they and many other architects were trying to drive the field (11).