admin_url

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/admin_url has a section with examples

home_url()	 Home URL	http://www.example.com
site_url()	 Site directory URL	http://www.example.com OR http://www.example.com/wordpress
admin_url()	 Admin directory URL	http://www.example.com/wp-admin/
includes_url()	 Includes directory URL	http://www.example.com/wp-includes/
content_url()	 Content directory URL	http://www.example.com/wp-content/
plugins_url()	 Plugins directory URL	http://www.example.com/wp-content/plugins/

In all the WP docs (especially related to multisite), is it assumed that WP is inststalled at http://www.example.com/? Or is it at http://www.example.com/wordpress ?

The trouble I am having is that the admin_url(‘abc.php’) is generating http://www.example.com/wp-admin/abc.php while my wordpress is at http://www.example.com/wordpress

To serve WP from http://example.com/ in a few of the sites (multisite installation), I am creating a .htaccess with rewrite rules to send all requests to http://www.example.com/ to http://www.example.com/wordpress/ (all requests except the request for wordpress/ itself).

My Home is http://www.example.com/wordpress/
Siteurl http://www.example.com/

Should the admin_url not be returning home/wp-admin ? it seems to be returning siteurl/wp-admin. Have I reached a specific situation where the WP core is breaking down?

What I am trying to do is serve WP at http://site1.example.com/ instead of http://site1.example.com/wordpress/ while the wordpress is located at http://www.example.com/wordpress/