Architecture of St. Louis

:"see also the List of tallest buildings in St. Louis

The architecture of St. Louis substantially dates to its largest period of growth as a riverport and national freight center.

Through 1920

The city's initial growth came between 1840 and 1900, with westward expansion. The city's remaining architectural heritage from that era includes a multi-block collection of cobblestone streets and vintage brick-and-cast-iron riverfront warehouses called Laclede's Landing. Now popular for its restaurants and nightclubs, the district is located directly north of the steel engineering landmark Eads Bridge, and within walking distance of the extensive grounds of the well-known Gateway Arch and the historic riverfront.

Other examples of 18th and 19th century architecture can be found at the Soulard Market district (1779-1842), the Chatillon-de Menil House (1848), the Robert G. Campbell House (1852), the Old Courthouse (1845-62), and the original Anheuser-Busch Brewery (1860), whose architect is unknown.

Important civic buildings from important architects of their time include the 1873 Old Post Office by Alfred B. Mullett, one of only two surviving urban fortresses built in the aftermath of the American Civil War, and the stately St. Louis Public Library by Cass Gilbert completed in 1912.

Two of Louis Sullivan's important early skyscrapers stand among a crop of similar office buildings and department stores built up between 1890 and 1915. His Wainwright Building (1890-91) features strong base-pediment-shaft massing and an insistently vertical pattern of ornament; his Union Trust Building of 1893 was stripped of its cave-like street-level ironwork in 1924. Sullivan also designed Charlotte Dickson Wainwright's tomb in the Bellefontaine side of the Bellefontaine and Calvary Cemeteries on the north side, surrounded by a collection of similar tombs for the great old St. Louis families, interesting for their late-Gilded Age artwork.

Many other significant downtown skyscrapers of those years are attributed to the locally important architect John Mauran. Preservationists continue to fight against such recent losses as the St. Louis Century Building.

In residential areas, St. Louis has a considerable stock of turn-of-the-century mansions and brick churches in unexpected parts of the city. The city is significant in American urban design history for its private places, residential developments with large mansions, and the common facilities like streets and gardens co-owned. Dating from before 1868 and built through 1905, many of these developments are well-preserved and still gated, patrolled, and functioning as private enclaves.

By the 1900 census, St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the country. In 1904, the city hosted a world's fair at Forest Park called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Only a handful of the actual fair buildings would become permanent city cultural institutions, notably the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Missouri History Museum, but the years of the fair left other assets to the city, like Theodore Link's 1894 St. Louis Union Station, and an improved Forest Park.

1920 and Beyond

In 1923 the city passed a $87 million bond issue for re-development of the Civic Plaza along the lines of the City Beautiful movement. This development, unfortunately delayed and scaled-down, resulted in some of St. Louis's major civic furniture: the Soldiers' Memorial, the Civil Courts Building, and the currently-abandoned Opera House portion of the Kiel Auditorium.

As the growth of the city leveled off, there was still enough spirit and money to produce landmarks like the 1929 Fox Theatre (St. Louis), beautiful restored, and the 1929 Continental-Life Building, also recently saved from oblivion.

Then into the 1940s and 1950s a certain sub-genre of St. Louis modernism emerged, with the locally important Harris Armstrong, and a series of daring modern civic landmarks like Gyo Obata's Planetarium, the geodesic-dome Climatron, and the main terminal building at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. St. Louis was also the headquarters for postwar modernist bank designer Wenceslaus Sarmiento, whose major work here is the Chancery Building, on the grounds of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, circa 1965.

All this culminated with Eero Saarinen's magnificent stainless-steel gesture, the Gateway Arch, centerpiece of the 91-acre riverside Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

On the other side of urban renewal St. Louis was also the site of Pruitt-Igoe, the most infamous among housing developments in the United States, ultimately so dysfunctional that its residents chanted during a public meeting, "Tear it down, tear it down", and city officials took their advice. (The architect of Pruitt-Igoe, Minoru Yamasaki, was also the designer of the main terminal building at Lambert Airport, and of the World Trade Center.)

Architects of St. Louis

* John Mauran
* William B. Ittner
* Eames & Young
* Theodore Link
* city planner George Kessler
* Harris Armstrong
* Gyo Obata of HOK

Images

External links

* [http://www.builtstlouis.net/ Excellent, extensive archive of descriptions and photos of St. Louis architecture]