Architecture St. Louis: An Architecture Center for Metropolitan St. Louis

Introduction

Architecture forms the physical context for our lives. It helps define our relationships to one another, to the natural world and to our past. It embodies our values and speaks to our individual and collective aspirations. Yet something so fundamental, so basic to the identity of our community, often remains just that, a context, a background, its importance underappreciated and misunderstood in the immediate crush of our daily lives. And this is to the detriment of our sense of who we are as an important metropolitan region. We think something can be done about it.

Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc. believes that establishing an architectural center for metropolitan St. Louis has the potential to advance its core mission to preserve, enhance, and promote St. Louis' architectural heritage and to encourage sound planning and good contemporary design.

Since its incorporation in 1959, Landmarks Association has combined architectural education and preservation advocacy to promote historic awareness, wise urban design choices and excellence in contemporary architecture. Over the past four decades, Landmarks has produced award-winning publications, introduced acclaimed heritage education programs, brought together coalitions for legislative change and sponsored countless tours and events. On the local level this work has produced jobs, increased the tax base, helped conserve natural and historic resources and reinforced a sense of community. Such diverse experience supports Landmarks Association's readiness for the challenge of creating, programming and maintaining an architectural center with a wide variety of functions.

Why Does St. Louis Need An Architecture Center?

To celebrate and boast of our wealth of existing buildings, neighborhoods and parks.

To excite and educate our children about their architectural heritage that they may come to value it, not for just its own sake, but also for the talent and vision of the people who built it.
To energize and retain the region's talented young professionals.
To serve as a central resource for the ongoing myriad efforts to enhance the physical environment of our metropolitan area.

To advance cultural tourism and promote informed public dialogue about the future.

Floor plan of Architecture St. Louis, courtesy of the Lawrence Group.

ARCHITECTURE ST. LOUIS is envisioned primarily as a place for the enlightenment and appreciation of architectural achievement. It would provide the metropolitan area a public forum for fair and spirited exploration of topical issues in the built environment. The proposed center would invigorate existing educational programs and introduce a new cultural magnet to downtown St. Louis. Marketed to the convention center and others as a specialized venue, the center will emerge as a community resource as well as a hotspot of activity.

The new center is located on the first floor of the Lammert Building, 911 Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. The space includes temporary exhibit galleries and a fifty-seat multi-purpose room as well as space devoted to Landmarks Association's administrative offices and archives.

Across the hall from this space is the bookstore and headquarters for the St. Louis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Pedestrian traffic on busy Washington Avenue and the nearby convention center complex provide vital links to ARCHITECTURE ST. LOUIS. Add to this exciting mix a growing downtown residential population, and you have unparalleled synergy and visibility of a site that is easily accessible by foot, car and public transportation.

Exhibits

The center will mount first-rate exhibits with ever-evolving content to keep the material fresh for return visitors and to attract newcomers. Temporary exhibits, models and architectural elements, book signings and photography shows might be designed to complement or rotate with concurrent exhibits at Washington University, the City Museum, the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park and the Bernoudy Gallery at the Sheldon.

Tours

ARCHITECTURE ST. LOUIS will become the gathering point for most of Landmarks' existing and new architectural tours. Regular tours that might be available when the Center opens include an expanded What Are Buildings Made Of? for families, St. Louis on Wheels (a three-hour bus-tour introduction to the city), downtown walking tours and public transit trips in collaboration with Citizens for Modern Transit (located on the 2^nd floor of the Lammert Building). Architecture Weekends, a monthly series of coordinated Friday lectures and weekend tours, will be co-sponsored by Landmarks and AIA St. Louis. Tours may also be sparked by current events, such as visits to projects under construction, or to sites that have received one of Landmarks Association's 11 Most Enhanced Awards. (See ‘Economic Impact' below)

Lectures and Events, Film/Video Screenings

Midday lectures or presentations would focus on subjects of special interest to downtown workers and residents.
Evening lectures or presentations would be geared toward a general audience.
Architectural firms, developers and planners could use the space for unveiling new designs or soliciting feedback on project proposals.
Larger events held off-site but co-sponsored by the center could include well-known guest speakers, "town hall" forums on current events, book signings, or short one-day conferences.
The center could also offer occasional small-scale screenings of films and videos relating to history, architecture, urban planning, public art, transportation and housing issues. Screenings would be followed by discussion sessions.

Local Collaboration and Partnerships

ARCHITECTURE ST. LOUIS will form creative partnerships with a large number of local organizations, starting with AIA St. Louis, Washington University's School of Architecture, the City Museum, Missouri History Museum, the Bernoudy Gallery at the Sheldon, and local public television station, KETC-TV9. These partnerships could entail event collaboration, program sharing, cross-marketing opportunities, educational enrichment programs and shared facilities. These relationships and others could also be a source for volunteer docents, visitor service volunteers and administrative assistants.

Original elevation drawing of the Lammert Building, 1897.

How You Can Help

The cost of establishing ARCHITECTURE ST. LOUIS stands at about $500,000, of which over $300,000 has been raised. We are seeking individual gifts, grants and support from corporate and private foundations to help cover the gap. A generous lead gift of $200,000 from Meade Summers, Jr. enabled us to make the decision to lease the new space in the Lammert Building and proceed with the build-out for its new purpose as an architecture center in time for occupancy on July 1, 2008. Our challenge now is to secure funding to cover remaining build-out costs, equipment and programs so that the new space can come to life. Please consider making a contribution to this effort.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Level*

Program/Event

Foundation: $2,500

What Are Buildings Made Of?, St. Louis on Wheels, Architects' Sunday, 11 Most Enhanced Awards, Lecture Series

Builder: $5,000

Your contribution will help support the above programs and will be given recognition in pre-opening and Grand Opening printed materials. You will also receive two tickets to the 50^th Anniversary Gala.

Preservationist: $10,000

Your contribution will be recognized as outlined above and with public recognition at the Grand Opening event.

Visionary: $25,000

Your contribution will be recognized as outlined above and include permanent signage in the Architecture Center.

Learning Center: $50,000

Your contribution will be recognized as outlined above, with the opportunity to name The Learning Center.

* Contributions of $5,000 or more may be spread over two (2) years. Contributions of $25,000 or more may be spread over five (5) years.

About Landmarks Association of St. Louis...

St. Louis, bequeathed with a wealth of historically and architecturally significant buildings, owes the conservation and adaptive reuse of much of that inheritance to Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc. Organized in 1958 and incorporated as a non-profit in 1959, Landmarks is the primary advocate for the region's built environment. Important victories from our early years include the Bissell Mansion and Red Water Tower in Hyde Park, the Chatillon-DeMenil House in Benton Park along with the Wainwright Building and Old Post Office in downtown. But in spite of many accomplishments, preservation was seldom included in the planning process.

Historic Milestones

In the early 1970s, Landmarks embarked on an ambitious citywide survey to identify important sites and potential historic districts.
The survey pace accelerated in the late 1970s when the federal government passed legislation offering tax credits for renovating properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
By the mid-1980s St. Louis led the country in historic tax credit reinvestment, thanks in large part to Landmarks' nominations to the Register.
In 1997, Landmarks also played a key role in framing Missouri's historic rehab tax credit program.
High-profile rescues resulting from this legislation include the Drury Plaza Hotel (encompassing the partly demolished Fur Exchange), the Westin Hotel (an adaptive reuse of Cupples Station) and the Sheraton St. Louis City Center, ingeniously inserted in the former Edison Brothers Warehouse.

Economic Impact

Landmarks annually presents a ceremony honoring St. Louis' 11 Most Enhanced Sites. Inaugurated in 1996, the list runs the gamut from those privately financed to those requiring every possible public resource.

In 2007 alone, these recognized projects (with costs ranging from $500,000 to $36 million) contributed $129,400,000 to the local economy.
Since 1998, when we began keeping tabs, the local economic impact is an astonishing $1,434,032,000!

Educational Outreach

Landmarks' National Register nominations routinely provide essential background for publications including its bi-monthly newsletter and series of guidebooks. The most popular, St. Louis: Landmarks & Historic Districts first published in 1988, was revised in a greatly expanded version in 2002. That same year Landmarks released the third in its series of multilingual cultural tourism pieces based on public transit. Designed to encourage international tourism and to introduce recent immigrants to easily reached attractions, the full-color brochures (Art on Wheels, Art on Rails) were funded in part by the Regional Arts Commission, the Whitaker Foundation and the Gateway Foundation.

In 1991, Landmarks created "What Are Buildings Made Of?" (WABMO) to introduce the built environment to tomorrow's leaders. The Regional Arts Commission has supported the acclaimed heritage education program since its inception. WABMO presents a hands-on session for 4^th grade children and their teachers held in downtown. It also holds sessions for seniors and for at-risk youth in the Soulard and Hyde Park neighborhoods. Lessons learned travel back to participants' neighborhoods and schools.

Bohemian Hill near City Hospital is a very different initiative. Designed to demonstrate that good contemporary architecture can fit comfortably in historic contexts, this effort started in 1999 with Landmarks' supervision of a graduate school studio at Washington University's School of Architecture. Since expanding into a partnership with YEHS YouthBuild and the Red Brick Community Land Trust, Bohemian Hill has seen the construction of three new houses. Much of the work was accomplished by at-risk youth whose intensive program combines experience in the building trades with high school equivalency education.

Diverse Demographics

Landmarks draws its strength from a broad-based membership. Its more than 1,300 regional dues-paying members include architects, attorneys, developers, consultants, historians, neighborhood leaders, bankers and community volunteers who also contribute expertise and advocacy.

Over the years members have supported Landmarks, even in the face of controversy. That is probably the legacy envisioned in 1962 by one of the founders who wrote:

"We must encourage continued use and creative adaptation of existing buildings and districts. But it is a mistake to insist that there must be an economic income returned by all buildings. Preservation is often self-justifying on purely cultural terms."

More than ever, Landmarks Association of St. Louis has a vitally important role to protect and preserve significant architectural treasures.

This has been our collective passion for 50 years.

How will you help continue this legacy?