Category: Mid-Century Modern

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I-70 Removal Mass Transit Mid-Century Modern Streets

Vintage Streetcar Photographs Show Mid-Century St. Louis

This week St. Louisan extraordinaire Jeff Vines discovered an online cache of 120 photographs of St. Louis Public Service Company trolley cars taken between 1954 and 1961. A few photographs from the 1980s are included.

The images of the cars in their vintage red, white and tan color scheme are fabulous. Yet the photographs also capture views of the city long lost, change or, in a few cases, preserved. The old Grand Avenue viaduct, its replacement soon to be replaced, features in many of the photographs in use adn under demolition. Other locations include the South Broadway car barn (now site of Carnahan Middle School), the Midtown skyline (remarkably unchanged), Maplewood, University City and Flynn Park, Washington Avenue from the Eads Bridge street car turn-around to 15th Street, rural Creve Couer, downtown St. Charles, and McKnight Road.

The photographs of the vicinity of the Eads Bridge and Washington Avenue include shots of the piers for the modern elevated lanes of I-70, now seen as likely to be removed in most of our life times.

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Mid-Century Modern St. Louis County

Mid-Century Modern in the Hanley Industrial Court

by Michael R. Allen

I found myself in a situation that I normally avoid during the month of December (or any month, really): I had to go shopping at a store on Brentwood Boulevard. Coming from the southeast of my destination, I headed north on Hanley Road and decided to slip through the reliable Hanley Industrial Court short-cut.

Am I glad that I did! What I found brightened my day and made the otherwise excruciating experience worthwhile.

Voila, at 318 Hanely Industrial Court stands the home of Arcliff Wholesale Distributors. The mod building dates to 1960, and is in pristine condition down to the swanky metal letters above the roof life. The center is cut away, opening to an employee parking area that separates the showroom from the storeroom. The building’s roofline changes to underscore the separation, creating welcome variation and presenting an almost Potemkin-like front to what is actually two very small sections and a lot of parking.

The storeroom section is accented with brown tile tapestry that underscores the tile sold wholesale by Arcliff. What a gem! Few of the other Hanley Industrial Court buildings demonstrate this much care in their design, so I was quite surprised to see this. I took a wrong turn to get there, so perhaps the serendipity was inevitable.

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Chicago Demolition Mid-Century Modern

Chicago Still Destroying Gropius’ Work

by Michael R. Allen

St. Louis has a long way to go to catch up to Chicago. While our Archdiocese senselessly demolished a motel by Charles Colbert this year, Chicago city government has been working to demolish the Michael Reese Hospital campus planned and co-designed by Walter Gropius. This week, the city’s wreckers demolished the power plant shown above, which was completed in 1953 and designed by Gropius’ The Architects Collaborative. Only five buildings associated with Gropius remain out of the eight that stood earlier this year, and the landscape is ruined.

The Michael Reese campus was Gropius’ only work in Chicago. In Chicago during the twentieth century, American eyes gazed upon some of the finest modern architecture in the history of the world, from Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies van der Rohe to Walter Gropius. As we know, the Windy City’s regard for the work of Sullivan has been spotty at best. Gropius’ work at least enjoys good company in its flagrant disregard.

While the city of Chicago is now bound by its contract with the demolition company, one wonders why the city even rushed to get into such an arrangement not knowing the outcome of its Olympics bid. Why did Alderwoman Toni Preckwinkle deign to play architectural historian and dispute the well-documented role of Gropius? Why did Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the supposed “Green Mayor,” rush to throw away irreplaceable, internationally significant modern architecture and already-built building stock? Don’t ask. Irrational acts of destruction lack any rational explanation.

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Chicago Demolition Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

In Chicago, Walter Gropius’ Work is Fair Game

by Michael R. Allen

The power plant at Michael Reese Hospital dates to 1953.

Readers know the story: Modern buildings targeted for demolition by powerful interests. Preservationists work to publicize the beauty and reuse potential of modern buildings. Apologists for power claim that modern buildings’ architectural significance is unclear. Back, forth. A few concessions on “major” buildings. Every major preservation voice and even the major newspaper calls for preservation. Then demolition of the “unimportant” buildings begins.

This story is not happening in St. Louis, but in Chicago. The modern buildings are those that comprise the postwar campus of Michael Reese Hospital on the city’s south side. The planner who designed the campus and collaborated on designing eight of the campus buildings is Walter Gropius. (The close proximity of a Gropius-planned campus to a Mies van Der Rohe-planned campus, that of the Illinois Institute of Technology, is unique in North America.) Strange that there would be any confusion over the work of an internationally-renowned modern designer, but in Chicago under the administration of Mayor Richard Daley, such obvious contribution to the worldwide evolution of architecture is no brake on the acts of power. Demolition started yesterday.

Apparently, common sense is also being wrecked, because the original reason for the City of Chicago’s acquisition of the Michael Reese campus was to prepare a residential village for the 2016 Olympic Games. After that bid failed — and many residents of the south side breathed a sigh of relief — the city ramped up the push for demolition with no real development plan. There is vague talk of “mixed use” development, but nothing that compels demolition now other than the absurd conviction that sticking to a senseless plan is righteous. Only two concessions for “major” buildings have been made — one early and one, for Gropius’ Singe Pavilion, last week. Context eludes the ham fists at Chicago City Hall, however.

Landmarks Illinois even offered a preservation compromise that would have targeted some buildings for preservation and allowed others to be wrecked. Daley’s administration had no interest. Never mind that there is a pending National Register of Historic Places nomination for the campus prepared by Grahm Balkany and the Gropius in Chicago Coalition, which will be considered by Illinois state government on December 10. Since no state and federal funds are being used to directly pay the wreckers, there will be no government review of demolition any way.

Showing a better form of conviction than the city of Chicago, the Gropius in Chicago Coalition trudges onward. Although the landscape by Sasaky DeMay and Associates is ruined, and one of the eight Gropius buildings is now lost, there is still something to be spared.

In a move unsurprising to preservationists, the City of Chicago early on decided to spare the main hospital building from 1907 by Schmidt, Garden & Martin from demolition. Widely hailed as a landmark in Chicago’s beloved Prairie School style, the main building would have engendered a preservation war.

However, some perfectly sound pre-Gropius buildings are also threatened, including the one pictured here:

While organized primarily to protect Gropius’ legacy, the Coalition has fought to preserve these buildings too. In fact, I expect Grahm to work until every last part of the complex is torn down. To date, his work has resulted in the sounding of every major Chicago voice on architecture, from the Tribune editorial board to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Midwest Office, in support of preservation. Just this week a letter with impressive signatories went out.

It’s not too late to make a difference. Contact information for Mayor Daley and key city officials is posted here. Raise your voice for internationally significant modern architecture.

Categories
Housing Mid-Century Modern North County St. Louis County

Ranch House Renewal in Ferguson

by Michael R. Allen

Today’s St. Louis Beacon carries an article about the inner-ring St. Louis County suburb of Ferguson’s attempt to revitalize neighborhoods composed largely of small postwar ranch houses. Rosalind Williams, director of planning and development for the city, has plans to save some of these homes by expanding them. From the article by Mary Delach Leonard:

Williams says the plan is to buy the homes and then “right-size” them by adding a bedroom or bathroom to make them more attractive to home buyers. The long-term goal: neighborhood stabilization.

Ferguson has continued its efforts to identify potential historic districts, including neighborhoods of smaller mid-century homes. In today’s economy, those smaller houses might be looking as good as they did fifty years ago.

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Downtown Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Farm and Home Building Looking Spiffy

by Michael R. Allen

Here’s a brief follow-up on the ongoing renovation of the Farm and Home Building — now dubbed the “411” after its north 10th Street address — at 10th and Locust streets downtown (see “Farm & Home Building’s Modern Slipcover Now Historic”, March 9). The building looks great! Once again, Craig Heller and his LoftWorks company has accomplished a sensitive rehabilitation of a difficult building.

Now, work on the exterior is almost totally done. The 1954 slip-cover, once a dingy mask that even Heller wanted to remove, again radiates modern optimism. The message is the same as ever: what is old is new again, downtown is back in action and we’ll beat the darned Soviets through our superior modern architecture. Okay, I jest, but the point is that few would have thought the Farm and Home could ever look this great. I can’t wait to raise a martini (but of course!) at the grand opening, and to see what mid-century modern building will be the next to catch a clever developer’s eye.

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Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern New Orleans New York City

Sunday Morning Reading

by Michael R. Allen

Francine Stock’s excellent Regional Modernism reports that St. Louis is not the only city taking aim at the work of New Orleans modernist Charles Colbert. Colbert’s hometown wants to level the playing field: the Recovery School District wants to demolish Colbert’s Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School (1955) as well as Curtis & Davis’s Thomy Lafron Elementary School (1954), also a modern landmark.

The New York Times reports on one man’s grassroots effort to save Admiral Row in Brooklyn, a row of stately 19th century houses once occupied by the Navy Yard’s highest-ranking officers. Architect Scott Witter’s crusade involves a curious home-grown museum, Brooklyn’s Other Museum of Brooklyn, which has found one of the best uses for blue painter’s tape that I’ve seen.

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Central West End Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Lindell’s Modern Buildings Should be Protected

by Michael R. Allen

My latest commentary for St. Louis Public Radio aired this morning; listen to or read it here.

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Mid-Century Modern Preservation Board South St. Louis

Encroachment Gives Cultural Resources Office Some Review Power

by Michael R. Allen

Today’s Preservation Board agenda contains an interesting preliminary review: the Cultural Resources Office (CRO) has jurisdiction over a poorly-conceived streamline modern industrial building at 4110 Beck Avenue due to review jurisdiction of encroachments in the public right of way. The false pilasters proposed to be added are encroachments, and CRO recommends denial.

The other changes, some also out of character, don’t fall under the CRO’s review powers and cannot be considered. Read the item here.

UPDATE: This matter was not on the final agenda.

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Central West End Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

CVS Proposal Threatens Two Modern Buildings on Lindell

by Michael R. Allen

Here is the site at Lindell and Sarah avenues in the Central West End that discount and drug store giant CVS is targeting for a new store. The site encompasses two historic buildings from our recent past that would be obliterated for a low-density big-box store with a drive through lane. Domino effect is evident: Walgreens is just a block west on a site where the mid-century Cinerama fell for the chain-store box. CVS wants to follow suit, but its aim is at a prominent corner, and three buildings with higher merit and reuse potential than a movie theater.

There seems to be major concern about the design on the part of the West Pine/Laclede Neighborhood Association, whose boundaries encompass the sites. Earlier, the neighborhood group was opposed based on a terrible site plan that CVS has since replaced. This month, the group voted to continue discussions.

At stake is the fate of two buildings whose individual densities are separately greater than the single building that will replace all three. While not completed, the forthcoming Central West End Sustainable Development Plan will likely include provisions discouraging the development of low-density uses on major neighborhood streets like Lindell. Thus, preservation is aligned here with larger planning goals.

The building at 4100 Lindell dates to 1956 and is one of the first works by then-new firm Hellmuth Obata and Kassabaum (HOK). Built as the regional office of typewriter giant Sperry-Rand Corporation, the building is most familiar to St. Louisans as the headquarters of the St. Louis Housing Authority. The Housing Authority relocated last month to a new building on Page Boulevard.

The Housing Authority building definitely has individual architectural significance. As an early work of HOK, the building is a key part of the development of a body of work that has international significance. The building itself is a fine essay in minimalism. This city has few true examples of modern “glass boxes” and this is one of them. The International Style roots are evident in the ample glazing, neutral colors, and the vertical I-beams that frame the recessed windows. This is a class act, and a fine corner anchor.

To the west, at 4108 Lindell, is a modest modern work. Built in 1960 for the St. Louis Society for Crippled Children (think Easter Seal), this building is a fine supporting player in the mid-century carnival on Lindell Boulevard. There are 30 modern movement buildings on Lindell between Grand and Kingshighway out of 32 built between 1941 and 1977. Not all of these buildings are tied to great architects or original expressions, but all are integral to an overall composition unlike any other in the city. Where else do we have such abundant mid-century architecture interspersed with the high-style architecture of the Gilded Age and early 20th century? Alas, our decision-makers are just a generation too close to the birth of these buildings to appreciate their significance.

To the west sits a for-sale building that might be more conventionally assumed to be “historic.” However, the Colonial Revival office building that once housed Places for People has more in common with its forward-looking neighbors than Independence Hall — this building dates to 1948 and is part of the wave of new construction on Lindell that took place after World War II. Some developers stuck with the tried and true rather than embrace new design. Either way, the results are splendid.

Today, we are the stewards of this development. The significance of the modern buildings is just starting to be explored by historians. Yet the contrast between the recent demolition of the San Luis Apartments and $9 million rehabilitation of the Hotel Indigo show the divergent paths of owners of these buildings. Perhaps architectural significance will be better appreciated by future generations, but even today we see that these buildings are much better for the urban street scape and Central West End planning goals than a drug store box.