Sited on a prominent stretch of Loughborough Avenue in St. Louis Hills, St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, designed by famed Modernist architect Harris Armstrong, was completed in 1960.
See interior views at Built St. Louis; I agree with Rob’s appraisal that the clerestory was surely not originally painted sky blue, but was probably gray.
The church also elicited quite a bit of attention when it was in the planning stages, and a Globe-Democrat article gives us a lot of information on the construction and planning. Originally budgeted for $250,000, the final bids came in at $223,000.
Perhaps the most striking element is the huge cantilevered cross which quadrisects the stained glass window, designed by Armstrong himself, and inspired by the famous painter Paul Klee. The stained glass was executed by Emil Frei & Associates.
The mosaics were also designed by Armstrong, though the article is not clear. Since the church is dedicated to St. Andrew, the presence of nets and fish is obvious, as Jesus recruits him and his brother Peter in Matthew 4:19:
He said to them, “Follow me,
and I will make you fishers of men.”
The interior, which was not open when I visited, is striking, and has strong influence from Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamps. It is not visible from the ground, but the overhead profile of the clerestory (the baby blue structure), is actually a trapezoid, not a rectangle.
The church has a capacity of 250; at one point the congregation at its height had a membership of 700 people.
No detail was spared, and even the bell is its own composition.
In order to bring natural light to the basement, the ground is excavated out and a gentle slope flows down to the windows.
The bell is a recycled locomotive bell — not surprising in view of the date of this building, which was right around the time that railroads were switching from steam to diesel. It’s unfortunate that it is not ringable (notice the position of the lever and the absence of an attached rope), because most locomotive bells have a fairly nice sound.