Where Have All the Big Banks Gone?
Farmers Bank, Peoples Savings and Loan Association, Henry Adams Building, Purdue State Bank, grinnelliowa.gov
Louis Sullivan medallion, edgeplot via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
Investment banks become holding banks, consumer banks, lending banks, discount
windows, seller windows, the frantic financial market terminology is mind-boggling. As Congress starts holding hearings today on the bailout plan, the gigantic financial institutions are eyeing the old consumer checking, savings and C.D. accounts as good business. Perhaps a return to the concept of the small, neighborhood institution of yore may be back in vogue. Remember those days of the little bank on the street corner or its prominent position on the town square? Louis Sullivan, an early proponent of modernism in 19th century architecture, designed a series of what is now known as the Jewel Box Banks, architectural gems of their small Midwestern towns.
Sullivan and his colleague, Dankmar Adler, formed one of the greatest architectural
and engineering teams ever established. From the start of their collaboration in 1880, until its dissolution in 1894, they produced 104 buildings, three of which stand out from the rest: The Auditorium Theatre Building in Chicago; the Wainwright Building in St. Louis; and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, N.Y. The financial panic of 1893 took its toll on the firm, and unable to meet their payroll, the partnership came to an end.
Sullivan went on to design his only New York City project, the Bayard Building, in 1898,
and the magnificent Carson, Pirie, Scott store in Chicago, completed in 1899. Things went downhill shortly thereafter. The architectural profession went through a sea change after the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and his design aesthetic was no longer in vogue. Also, Adler had been the businessman, Sullivan the artistic genius. So, down on his luck, Sullivan took a commission in 1907 to design a building for National Farmer's Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota. Seven more bank projects followed, four of which are the sparklers of the jewel box group: Merchants National Bank (1914) in Grinnell, Iowa, Home Building Association (1915) in Newark, Ohio, Peoples Savings and Loan Association (1918) in Sidney, Ohio, and Farmers and Merchants Union Bank (1920) in Columbia, Wisconsin.
seth tisue via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
Louis Sullivan's last commission was designing the decorative elements of glazed
terra-cotta tiles that were used on a Chicago storefront for Krause Music in 1922. He was found dead in a Chicago hotel room in 1924 and his former apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright, had to raise funds for Sullivan's burial. But, his bank buildings are a testament to a man who, while out of favor, never compromised in his desire to make the world a little more beautiful.
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