stylistic:style_transfer, quality:correction, linguistic:voice_change
Preservation

During the postwar era of urban renewal, Sullivan's works fell into disfavor, and many were demolished. In the 1970s, growing public concern for these buildings finally resulted in many being saved. The most vocal voice was Richard Nickel, who organized protests against the demolition of architecturally significant buildings. Nickel and others sometimes rescued decorative elements from condemned buildings, sneaking in during demolition. Nickel died inside Sullivan's Stock Exchange building while trying to retrieve some elements, when a floor above him collapsed. Nickel had compiled extensive research on Adler and Sullivan and their many architectural commissions, which he intended to publish in book form.

After Nickel's death, in 1972 the Richard Nickel Committee was formed, to arrange for completion of his book, which was published in 2010. The book features all 256 commissions of Adler and Sullivan. The extensive archive of photographs and research that underpinned the book was donated to the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago. More than 1,300 photographs may be viewed on their website and more than 15,000 photographs are part of the collection at The Art Institute of Chicago. As finally published, the book, The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan, was authored by Richard Nickel, Aaron Siskind, John Vinci, and Ward Miller.

Another champion of Sullivan's legacy was the architect Crombie Taylor (1907–1991), of Crombie Taylor Associates. After working in Chicago, where he had headed the famous "Institute of Design", later known as the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), in the 1950s and early 1960s, he had moved to Southern California. He led the effort to save the Van Allen Building in Clinton, Iowa from demolition. Taylor, acting as an aesthetic consultant, had worked on the renovation of the Auditorium Building (now Roosevelt University) in Chicago.

When he read an article about the planned demolition in Clinton, he uprooted his family from their home in southern California and moved them to Iowa. With the vision of a destination neighborhood comparable to Oak Park, Illinois, he set about creating a nonprofit to save the building, and was successful in doing so. Another advocate both of Sullivan buildings and of Wright structures was Jack Randall, who led an effort to save the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri at a very critical time. He relocated his family to Buffalo, New York to save Sullivan's Guaranty Building and Frank Lloyd Wright 's Darwin Martin House from possible demolition. His efforts were successful in both St. Louis and Buffalo.

A collection of architectural ornaments designed by Sullivan is on permanent display at Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The St. Louis Art Museum also has Sullivan architectural elements displayed. The City Museum in St. Louis has a large collection of Sullivan ornamentation on display, including a cornice from the demolished Chicago Stock Exchange, 29 feet long on one side, 13 feet on another, and nine feet high.

The Guaranty Building Interpretive Center in Buffalo, on the first floor of the building now owned and occupied by the law firm Hodgson Russ, LLP, opened in 2017. The exhibit space was financed by Hodgson Russ, LLP, and co-designed by Flynn Battaglia Architects and Hadley Exhibits. It features a scale model of the building by David J. Carli, Professor of Engineering at the State University of New York at Alfred. The center's exhibits were donated to Preservation Buffalo Niagara. The center, the only museum dedicated to Sullivan, is open to the public.