The Brownstone Chronicles, Part 24: Close-Up of the Central Façade, Old City Hall, Marquette, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA (1894)
If you're wondering what the tiny white dots in this image are, magnify the photo and you'll see they're that kind of little white Italian Christmas lights that in the US are usually strung over trees in shopping-center parking lots.
Because they're Italian, they're supposed to be all high-toned and classy, and not at all as common and tacky as colored lights or illuminated plastic Frosty the Snowman figures. Personally, I'd like to see two Frosties here, standing in the windows of the CITY HALL inset. Now that would be a winter light show to write home about, eh? Ya, you betcha.
Our last look at this arrestingly red edifice zooms in a bit and shows that the locally quarried Jacobsville Sandstone certainly makes a decent carving medium.
There are various brands of Upper Michigan's Jacobsville and Wisconsin's Bayfield Group sandstones that come under the general architectural heading of Lake Superior Brownstone. Some, like the "Portage Red" variety of the Jacobsville, are a cheerful brick-red, very similar in tint to the Marquette Brick shown here.
But most, like the rock on display here, are a morose maroon that appealed in some very deep and chthonic way to the designers of the Richardsonian Romanesque and other nineteenth-century styles that eschewed the Greco-Roman ideal in favor of more Medieval-derived designs. And I must admit it really appeals to me, too.
Incidentally, take a good look at the ashlar blocks that form the pilasters on the sides. I think they're supposed to be rusticated, sort of. At any rate, they show some of the pale, reduction-zone banding and mottling found on lower-grade Jacobsville.
But Holy Wah! That Super-Dooper Yooper Marquette Brick really knocks your socks off, eh?
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, visit
The Brownstone Chronicles, Part 24: Close-Up of the Central Façade, Old City Hall, Marquette, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA (1894)
If you're wondering what the tiny white dots in this image are, magnify the photo and you'll see they're that kind of little white Italian Christmas lights that in the US are usually strung over trees in shopping-center parking lots.
Because they're Italian, they're supposed to be all high-toned and classy, and not at all as common and tacky as colored lights or illuminated plastic Frosty the Snowman figures. Personally, I'd like to see two Frosties here, standing in the windows of the CITY HALL inset. Now that would be a winter light show to write home about, eh? Ya, you betcha.
Our last look at this arrestingly red edifice zooms in a bit and shows that the locally quarried Jacobsville Sandstone certainly makes a decent carving medium.
There are various brands of Upper Michigan's Jacobsville and Wisconsin's Bayfield Group sandstones that come under the general architectural heading of Lake Superior Brownstone. Some, like the "Portage Red" variety of the Jacobsville, are a cheerful brick-red, very similar in tint to the Marquette Brick shown here.
But most, like the rock on display here, are a morose maroon that appealed in some very deep and chthonic way to the designers of the Richardsonian Romanesque and other nineteenth-century styles that eschewed the Greco-Roman ideal in favor of more Medieval-derived designs. And I must admit it really appeals to me, too.
Incidentally, take a good look at the ashlar blocks that form the pilasters on the sides. I think they're supposed to be rusticated, sort of. At any rate, they show some of the pale, reduction-zone banding and mottling found on lower-grade Jacobsville.
But Holy Wah! That Super-Dooper Yooper Marquette Brick really knocks your socks off, eh?
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, visit