Geology & Botany of the Sullivan Jewel Boxes, Part 23: Illinois and Indiana in Iowa | People’s Savings Bank, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA (1912)
Looking southwestward at the northeastern elevation.
This building’s original name is also rendered less grammatically as Peoples Savings Bank. One can find both that version and mine used interchangeably on the same page of a certain online source.
The first thing to do when looking at the photo above is to mentally erase the higher, hulking 1960s addition in back. It is supposed to harmonize with the original edifice. I’ll let you decide if it actually does.
When I took this shot back in 2005, the bank had become a Wells Fargo branch. That company has long since vamoosed, and the structure now houses a restaurant. Unfortunately, the tall sign at left remains.
Of all the Sullivan jewel boxes I’ve seen, and I’ve visited all but one, the relatively complicated geometry of the Cedar Rapids representative is the oddball in what otherwise is a collection of truly boxy banks of simple shape but of much more complicated ornamentation. For what it’s worth, the People’s Savings was the second of the series, and the last in which Sullivan’s assistant George Elmslie, later a great architect in his own right, played a major role in the design.
The first rendering of this bank submitted to its board of directors did in fact have a fancier exterior. It was rejected as being too costly, but eventually the directors and the temperamental genius they really did want to employ agreed on this stripped-down alternative. By late-Sullivanian standards, it’s sheer minimalism. The unusual clerestory capping the central portion is an unusual element, too.
In case you’re not familiar with the architectural term clerestory, it is an upper-level or rooftop projection housing high-set windows that help illuminate the interior. It’s pronounced “CLEAR STORY,” though peddlers of faux elegance like to make it “kluh-ESS-tuh-ree” instead. I’ve even heard one person attempt to Frenchify it, with entertaining results.
As far as its exterior materials go, the People’s Savings is better documented than some of its siblings. What terra-cotta there is definitely is the handiwork of modeler Kristian Schneider at the American works in McHenry County, Illinois. Schneider, like Elmslie, is one of the still too little recognized heroes of Sullivan’s mythic output. See Part 10 of this set for more on Schneider, the American Terra Cotta Company, and the geologically derived materials it relied on.
Concerning the primary construction material, brick, der liebe Meister here once again took great pains to achieve a handsome effect with subtle gradations. He reportedly specified fifteen different shades of red and brown. But from where, exactly, did he order them?
For a long time I could not find any reference to the source of the brick. And then I glanced at a 1977 form that nominated this bank for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places Inventory. It identified the exterior as “multicolored Indiana brick laid in common bond.”
Hmm. Sullivan. Indiana. Brick. When one puts those three factors together, the almost certain conclusion is that we’re once again looking at Crawfordsville Brick. It was a long-time favorite of Sullivan’s, and he also used in the the Purdue National Bank and the Farmers & Merchants Union Bank .
Located in the eastern part of the Hoosier State, Crawfordsville was home to a thriving brickmaking industry that mined local deposits of Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous) Borden Group shales and siltstones for its base material.
I’ll continue to make the case for this identification in close-ups to come. Unless I come up with some evidence to the contrary in the meantime.
The other photos and descriptions of this series can be found in my Geology & Botany of the Sullivan Jewel Boxes album.
Geology & Botany of the Sullivan Jewel Boxes, Part 23: Illinois and Indiana in Iowa | People’s Savings Bank, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA (1912)
Looking southwestward at the northeastern elevation.
This building’s original name is also rendered less grammatically as Peoples Savings Bank. One can find both that version and mine used interchangeably on the same page of a certain online source.
The first thing to do when looking at the photo above is to mentally erase the higher, hulking 1960s addition in back. It is supposed to harmonize with the original edifice. I’ll let you decide if it actually does.
When I took this shot back in 2005, the bank had become a Wells Fargo branch. That company has long since vamoosed, and the structure now houses a restaurant. Unfortunately, the tall sign at left remains.
Of all the Sullivan jewel boxes I’ve seen, and I’ve visited all but one, the relatively complicated geometry of the Cedar Rapids representative is the oddball in what otherwise is a collection of truly boxy banks of simple shape but of much more complicated ornamentation. For what it’s worth, the People’s Savings was the second of the series, and the last in which Sullivan’s assistant George Elmslie, later a great architect in his own right, played a major role in the design.
The first rendering of this bank submitted to its board of directors did in fact have a fancier exterior. It was rejected as being too costly, but eventually the directors and the temperamental genius they really did want to employ agreed on this stripped-down alternative. By late-Sullivanian standards, it’s sheer minimalism. The unusual clerestory capping the central portion is an unusual element, too.
In case you’re not familiar with the architectural term clerestory, it is an upper-level or rooftop projection housing high-set windows that help illuminate the interior. It’s pronounced “CLEAR STORY,” though peddlers of faux elegance like to make it “kluh-ESS-tuh-ree” instead. I’ve even heard one person attempt to Frenchify it, with entertaining results.
As far as its exterior materials go, the People’s Savings is better documented than some of its siblings. What terra-cotta there is definitely is the handiwork of modeler Kristian Schneider at the American works in McHenry County, Illinois. Schneider, like Elmslie, is one of the still too little recognized heroes of Sullivan’s mythic output. See Part 10 of this set for more on Schneider, the American Terra Cotta Company, and the geologically derived materials it relied on.
Concerning the primary construction material, brick, der liebe Meister here once again took great pains to achieve a handsome effect with subtle gradations. He reportedly specified fifteen different shades of red and brown. But from where, exactly, did he order them?
For a long time I could not find any reference to the source of the brick. And then I glanced at a 1977 form that nominated this bank for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places Inventory. It identified the exterior as “multicolored Indiana brick laid in common bond.”
Hmm. Sullivan. Indiana. Brick. When one puts those three factors together, the almost certain conclusion is that we’re once again looking at Crawfordsville Brick. It was a long-time favorite of Sullivan’s, and he also used in the the Purdue National Bank and the Farmers & Merchants Union Bank .
Located in the eastern part of the Hoosier State, Crawfordsville was home to a thriving brickmaking industry that mined local deposits of Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous) Borden Group shales and siltstones for its base material.
I’ll continue to make the case for this identification in close-ups to come. Unless I come up with some evidence to the contrary in the meantime.
The other photos and descriptions of this series can be found in my Geology & Botany of the Sullivan Jewel Boxes album.