Dankmar Adler was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers
boldly addressed their steel skeleton through their exterior design: the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri (1891), the Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1894), and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York (1896).

Adler immigrated to the United States in 1854 and settled in Detroit, where he began his study of architecture in 1857. Later he moved to Chicago, where he became a drafts man in the office of Augustus Bauer. The American Civil War interrupted his career, and upon his return to Chicago in 1865 he held a succession of positions in the offices of Bauer, A.J. Kinney, and Edward Burling. The first of his important buildings was the Central Music Hall in Chicago, in which he made initial use of his knowledge of acoustics.

In 1881 the partnership of Adler and Sullivan was founded. The commercial buildings which they designed—particularly the Auditorium (Chicago), Wainwright (St. Louis), and Guaranty (Buffalo)—constituted a new architectural style with the essential features of modern building art. Adler acted as engineering designer and administrator, Sullivan as planner and artist. The association ended in July 1895.