PS- I actually love the current facade of 1015 Locust. It's got a 1960s Mad Men look and I think it's pretty sharp. I also like St. Louis Place. Yeah, it's blocky and '80s, but cities should have diversity of all styles and eras, and the rich red color stands out in postcard views of the skyline. I'm a fan.
^ Wait, are you saying the reclad is tacky, cheap, etc? Or the original? FWIW, I think the original is pukey. The new one isn't much better but it's not hideous like that rainbow thing. That looks like a Soviet apartment building. The street level represents everything wrong with mid-century architecture.
^Different strokes, I guess. I love the original, multi-color version, along with the base. And that Trader Vic's entrance; my god, it was awesome. Like Gasm says, cities should have architecture from all styles and eras. Variety; that's what makes life interesting.
I worked in that building for a while in the Ramada days, before the reclad disaster. I walked around there quite a bit, since I could park in the garage free. (A very nice perq, if I must say so.) What was wrong with the street level? We had (vacant) street level retail. (The Trader Vics. We used it for storage by then.) There was a street level restaurant. It was mostly built pretty close to the sidewalk line, save for the driveway and porte-cochere. The parking was (and I assume is) all one story up. (Stories two through four, as I recall, with guest floors starting on five.) The lobby and associated amenities occupied the entire footprint of the pedestal for the first floor. (And the basement, for that matter.) It participated in the street wall. It had varied massing and nice texture. It was great, if somewhat neglected by the time I was there. I'd love to see it stripped and redone properly. I love that old building. Even if we did have drunken idiots climbing on the balconies every once in a while.
It seems this was more than just a simple skin, though. Notice each of the rooms had balconies. It seems like the Hampton Inn re-do actually enclosed the balconies- I assume for more room space. I'm not sure if it's feasible to strip off the facade and put it back the way it was, even if they wanted to.
Shame. I know not everyone cares for the MCM aesthetic, but skinning that with concrete panels painted a brick color was a terrible choice that left the building both less distinct and less attractive.
Yep. That's the way I remember it. I was there in '99, I believe it was. During the McGwire asterisk run. It was an exciting time to be downtown, actually. We had lots of convention traffic during the summer. A fair bit of baseball traffic, thanks to the excitement. Crazy chaos, but usually fun. Good memories.
The glass area on top of the garage should be the pool, as I recall. I always wondered about the Trader Joe's entrance. It's neat to find out (here of all places) what it once was. And yes, I agree that it looks like the balconies were enclosed in the reclad. I would have to assume all the concrete work is still back there, though. And the walls separating the balconies from the rooms were essentially just french doors. I assume they were removed, but it should be easy enough to replace them. One of these days. Hideous reclads can be stripped off when folks realize the mistakes . . . fifty years later. I guess we'll be due up to find out the mid fifties. (The reclad came pretty quickly after that, as I recall. We were clearly on our last legs. The place really did need a near gut remodel to fix all the deferred maintenance issues; leaks, plumbing problems, a balky and very dated HVAC system, and generally quite worn finishes, to name but a few issues. Gorgeous, and a great location, but in need of TLC.)
Nice find Framer. I wonder if they can ever undo that recladding. It appears that the entrance and brick along Hanley still exists. I assume the original building is severely damaged.
I remember being in the building before the makeover. It was the kind of place that literally takes your breath away as you enter; like a church or a museum. Perhaps a temple to commerce.
Problem was, as an office building it was totally impractical; not enough usable floor space, and the maintenance and utility bills must have been astronomical. No, the building has been completely destroyed; they'd basically have to start over to restore it.
It's so sad to see what little remains. It's almost like they left the original entrance just to say f..k you.
^I have this absurd hope that the original structure is still salvageable. The new facade feels to me almost like an "addition" cocooning the original. With a touch of luck, maybe this one will eventually be saved.
No, both of these redesigns are beyond repair. They're versions of your significant other that's already been bitten by a zombie. Ignore it and move on. Focus your historic preservation efforts elsewhere. Of course the bank redesign was bad but in the 80s they viewed MCM they way we view 80s today. By '99 though, they should have known better with the Bel Air East. Although I'm not totally confident on when MCM was reaching it's revival stage.
The lesson in all of this is to think about what we view as ugly today but will be treasured in 20 years. Personally, I think the top of One AT&T & One Met Sq are both ugly. But they were peak 80s postmodernism, they could very well come back into style the way MCM has. The bank in Clayton is standard post-modernism and could actually be admired some day. I don't think there's hope for Bel Air East though, it's ugly across the board.
Just because you're made a building look like it once did doesn't mean it's the same building. 300 N Tucker had a metal skin over it, it was easy to repair. 411 N 10th was beyond repair and is still a beautiful building today.
Not a tower, but the Arch stainless steel is wrinkled and stained. Panels need to be replaced. As for buildings, the Sevens building in Clayton is a candidate for new glass. University Club tower too. Two ugly buildings with no historic appeal.
^Strongly disagree. The Sevens Building and the University Club Tower are both iconic; classic examples of the International Style, of which we really don't have that many of in STL.
^ I'm well aware of the travesty of the Mercantile Library. That's not "sprucing up" in my opinion, that's damn near a reconstruction. I'm talking about just polishing up the facades a bit, maybe some fresh glass, not at all talking about changing the look, designs or the facade of the buildings. When I say they're getting dull, I mean that in the most literal sense, not from an aesthetic perspective. They just look weathered, nothing wrong with a little spit shine
