missions, and no sketch of the architectural development of St. Louis would be just if it failed to give credit to them for helping to awaken in their contemporaries a consciousness of beauty and good design. These men exercised a strong influence on a growing group of younger architects at a time when the eastern schools and universities were organizing definite courses in planning, construction and design. In any record of the architectural development of St. Louis, mention should be made of another outstanding name, that of Louis Sullivan. After the Columbian Exposition at Chicago
in 1893, the work of Sullivan attracted a good deal of attention in different parts of the country, and he was given the opportunity to execute several important commissions in St. Louis. Of these the Wainwright Building is the most widely known. It stands today as he built it, and beautifully exemplifies his principles and talents at their best. His Union Trust Building has been sadly altered and the former St. Nicholas Hotel, now the Victoria Building, mangled out of all semblance of the original form. A charming little residence, the Wainwright House, has disappeared; but Time is gradually vindicating Sullivan’s theories, and their validity unobscured by his mannerisms becomes clearer day by day.
Since the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1903, St. Louis has almost doubled in population. Old structures have been demolished to make way for others designed to more fitly fill the needs of the community. The record of the past twenty-five years is fairly complete.
The residential work of a number of men is well and favorably known; and each year shows an increasing array of well designed schools, churches, hospitals and commercial structures. A certain eclecticism is still the order of the day, but the same thing might be said of other communities.
The architects of St. Louis, like architects everywhere in America, are doing all they can to make the labors of the archaeologist of the future exciting, confusing and continuous.
OLD CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1859 LEOPOLD EIDLITZ, ARCHITECT
SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ST. LOUIS, MO.,
IN 1840
ST. LOUIS COURT HOUSE, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1839—1862
HENRY SINGLETON, WILLIAM TWOMBLEY, ROBERT S. MITCHELL, THOMAS D. P. LANHAM AND
WILLIAM RUMBOLD, ARCHITECTS
in 1893, the work of Sullivan attracted a good deal of attention in different parts of the country, and he was given the opportunity to execute several important commissions in St. Louis. Of these the Wainwright Building is the most widely known. It stands today as he built it, and beautifully exemplifies his principles and talents at their best. His Union Trust Building has been sadly altered and the former St. Nicholas Hotel, now the Victoria Building, mangled out of all semblance of the original form. A charming little residence, the Wainwright House, has disappeared; but Time is gradually vindicating Sullivan’s theories, and their validity unobscured by his mannerisms becomes clearer day by day.
Since the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1903, St. Louis has almost doubled in population. Old structures have been demolished to make way for others designed to more fitly fill the needs of the community. The record of the past twenty-five years is fairly complete.
The residential work of a number of men is well and favorably known; and each year shows an increasing array of well designed schools, churches, hospitals and commercial structures. A certain eclecticism is still the order of the day, but the same thing might be said of other communities.
The architects of St. Louis, like architects everywhere in America, are doing all they can to make the labors of the archaeologist of the future exciting, confusing and continuous.
OLD CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1859 LEOPOLD EIDLITZ, ARCHITECT
SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ST. LOUIS, MO.,
IN 1840
ST. LOUIS COURT HOUSE, ST. LOUIS, MO., 1839—1862
HENRY SINGLETON, WILLIAM TWOMBLEY, ROBERT S. MITCHELL, THOMAS D. P. LANHAM AND
WILLIAM RUMBOLD, ARCHITECTS