One thing that St. Louis does not have in its downtown is an extant Egyptian Revival building, which is something that Minneapolis can claim. Apparently this was an old location for Marquette Bank.
Am I totally thrilled with the the bridge going right into the middle of the second floor? No, but I prefer it to the building being torn down.
I have really enjoyed this series on Minneapolois / St. Paul. When we’re able to travel I would love to visit. Thanks for sharing your visit.
Thank you, Evelyn! I have a some more coming, and then we’ll be heading to Dubuque, Iowa, which is a hidden gem of America.
In STL there’s a building near the old Central High School on Garison and Natural Bridge that also fits this egyptian revival style.
That building is the Mt. Moriah Temple Lodge, a fraternal organization, built in 1913 according to designs by Henri Rusch. Surprisingly, I have never photographed it.
Downtown Minneapolis does not have an extant Egyptian Revival building, because what you photographed is not a building. It is a facadectomy on par with Philadelphia’s “extant” Egyptian Revival building: John Haviland’s Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company. Something about the Egyptian Revival style just invites façadism, apparently. Behind that pitiful remnant of façade is a parking garage, the 517 Marquette Ramp (https://www.emporis.com/buildings/234907/517-marquette-ramp-minneapolis-mn-usa).
The Minnesota Historical Society has a photograph of the building when it was still a building: http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/largerimage.php?irn=10197111&catirn=10829167&return=brand=cms&q=Marquette,%20traffic&startindex=101.
The Carnegie Museum of Art has a rendering of the building as it was originally to be designed: https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/aa27a5b2-938a-46a7-b3ea-a6b801dcfadc.
Ah, you know the term “facadetomy” too! I was not able to view the inside of the building, so I did not know if they had left anything intact.
Notice in your first photograph the seams around the entire façade, particularly on the left side of the photograph. That is a tell-tale sign of an example of facadism. Also note that it appears there is little relationship by the bank façade to either the building façade surrounding it or to anything behind it. It is easier to notice these details in person, sometimes photographs do not fully do them justice.
Yeah, it’s been two years since I took these photographs, and I’d forgotten a lot of the context of what I’d seen in person.