Update: The train shed out back has undergone a dramatic renovation, having been converted into a convention center and a new aquarium. The hotel, including the Grand Hall, has been dramatically re-envisioned. I went by Union Station to check out the renovations to the train shed; the hotel is taking over a portion of the…
Category: Downtown
Posts about downtown St. Louis
Ornamentation, Wainwright Building
While the Chicago School might be known for sparse ornamentation, the Wainwright Building proves that wrong; from the door on the first floor to the smallest detail, the building is accented with perfect, innovative designs. There is the most interesting design element on the vertical elements in between the windows on the floor right above…
The Wainwright Building
Completed in 1891, the Wainwright Building by Louis Sullivan is perhaps St. Louis’s most influential building, commissioned by Ellis Wainwright from the firm of Adler and Sullivan. Discarding revivalist trends in skyscrapers of the time, Sullivan created an entirely new vocabulary for a tall building. Sparsely adorned vertical lines dominate the structure, cutting through the…
Wright Building, Revisited Again
Update: Pyramid Companies went bankrupt, but the building’s renovation by a new company was completed in September 2015. I debated having a separate tag for the Wright Building, the older rump of the combined Arcade-Wright Building, but I decided against it. It’s a beautiful building, but its fate and character are intrinsically linked to its…
Carson Pirie Scott: A Solution for the Railway Exchange Building
What will we do with the giant empty hulk of the Railway Exchange Building? It seems that the age of the august department store in downtown is over, because, despite angry nostalgia when they close, nobody shops at them. My heart sunk when I walked in to buy a wedding gift at the downtown Macy’s…
Railway Exchange Building, Sunset
What an amazing building, and hopefully its future will be brighter after the darkness after the sunset of the Macy’s closure.
Union Trust Building, Revisited
Update: The Union Trust Building was renovated in 2018. Just look at that ornament; Louis Sullivan was making history with the design of this building, and many others in his career.
Bell Telephone Exchange Building
The former Bell Telephone Exchange Building has had an interesting history; built for operators, it has changed hands repeatedly. The rusticated Romanesque Revival facade is typical of St. Louis architecture before the advent of Louis Sullivan’s imprint on the buildings of St. Louis. I see a little Renaissance influence in the roundels between the arches….
Paul Brown Building
Built on the first floor and foundations of an earlier building, the Paul Brown Building makes up roughly the other half of the block occupied by the Arcade-Wright Building. I find the decoration in terracotta hard to quantify: what style is it really other than a playful mixture of different styles such as a dentilated…
Arcade Building, Revisited
Update: The Arcade-Wright Building was finally rehabbed in 2015. I was planning on posting about the long vacant Arcade Building today anyway, but then came the announcement that the building will finally be renovated into apartments. The Arcade Building is interesting in that it is one of the few large skyscrapers not in the Chicago…