Seasonal Lecture

In his lecture, Andrew Weil, Executive Director of Landmarks Association, will discuss Civil War defenses of St. Louis and some of the people who played roles in their planning and construction. Using historic architectural drawings of the wide range of complex structures, this talk will discuss the forms, functional components, and strategic geography of the mutually supporting system of polygonal forts that ringed St. Louis from 1861-1865.

Spanning over 350 years of history, this lecture explores the story of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis—from the early French exploration of the Mississippi River to the creation of one of the world’s great cathedrals. Drawing from the book The Story of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, the talk will highlight the growth of Catholicism in the region, the evolution of St. Louis, and the construction of key churches leading up to the present-day Cathedral Basilica. Attendees will gain insight into its architectural design, structural refinements, and the awe-inspiring mosaics that define its interior, all illustrated with historical imagery.

An exploration of pre-Civil War St. Louis through the daguerreotype photographs of Thomas Easterly that are housed at the Missouri Historical Society. No other photographer in St. Louis captured the city's built landscape of the 1840s and 1850s quite like Easterly.