Category Archives: Mid-Century Modern
Modernism in Motion on South Grand: The Hamiltonian Federal Savings and Loan Association Building
by Michael R. Allen Grand Avenue soon will feature two striking examples small modernist buildings imaginatively adapted for food-based businesses (the “flying saucer” at Council plaza hopefully needs no introduction here). South Grand’s lone glass box, the Hamiltonian Federal Savings … Continue reading
Building the General American Life Insurance Company Building
by Michael R. Allen Among the collections of the Preservation Research Office is a stock of amateur photographs showing changed in the St. Louis built environment at the last century’s middle point. Our collection draws from many anonymous urban gazers … Continue reading
Posted in Downtown, Mid-Century Modern, PRO Collection
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Thurman Station: Where It All Began For Me
by Dave Brownell The National Park Service placed “Thurman Station,” the former Standard Oil station at Thurman and Cleveland avenues in Shaw, in the National Register of Historic Places on July 23. Preservation Research Office prepared the building’s nomination for … Continue reading
Posted in Mid-Century Modern, National Register, PRO Projects, Shaw
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Harwood Hills: A Preservation Challenge
by Michael R. Allen I provided this essay for the brochure that was distributed at Modern STL’s Harwood Hills House Tour on May 19, 2013. The brochure used to market Harwood Hills epitomizes the claims that drove St. Louis’ mid-century … Continue reading
Posted in Housing, Mid-Century Modern, St. Louis County
9 Comments
The Streamlined Standard Service Station in Shaw
by Michael R. Allen and Emily Kozlowski Preservation Research Office’s latest project was a sheer joy: preparation of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the streamlined Thurman Station gas station in the Shaw neighborhood. Thurman Station is an … Continue reading
Posted in Mid-Century Modern, Shaw, South St. Louis
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Mid-Century Modernism, Race and Equality: Two St. Louis Landmarks
by Michael R. Allen The notion of buildings that speak helps us to place at the very centre of our architectural conundrums the questions of the values we want to live by – rather than merely of how we want … Continue reading
Posted in Mid-Century Modern, Midtown, Pruitt Igoe, Urban Renewal Era
2 Comments
Diagnosing the Future: Modernism, Medicine and Historic Preservation
by Michael R. Allen Last week, the Chicago Commission on Landmarks for the second time unanimously voted to rescind the landmark designation for Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital (completed in 1975). The vote essentially dooms the innovative concrete-shell modernist hospital … Continue reading
This Building Matters #5: Modern St. Louis (Citywide MCM Survey)
Yesterday, the Cultural Resources Office held a public meeting on the ongoing citywide survey of non-residential mid-century modern architecture. Cultural Resources Office Director Betsy Bradley started the meeting with a talk that included slides of the handful of St. Louis … Continue reading
The Mid-Century Modernism of Marcel Boulicault
by Michael R. Allen St. Louis architect Marcel Boulicault’s name probably is unfamiliar to you, but a few of his works will draw an “ah ha!” or two. Boulicault is a designer whose contributions to Modern architecture in St. Louis … Continue reading
Finding Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Louis
by Michael R. Allen Our city’s enduring legacy to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. consists of the renamed Veterans Memorial Bridge (built 1951, renamed 1968) and the several-miles of combined Franklin and Easton avenues (renamed in 1968). The bridge is … Continue reading
