now Public Library
You are here
United States Post Office Building (now Public Library)
1937, Louis A. Simon and Neal Melick. Corner of Park Ave. and Commercial St.
In style this building is PWA Moderne in one of its severe guises. The architects have set a two-story volume upon a rusticated Kasota stone base. The building's central portico piers are close to the surface and continue the adjoining wall plane. A similar emphasis on flat surfaces occurs in the attic above the portico where the classical vocabulary has been reduced to the simplest of geometric forms. In the building's recent conversion to a library, new metal windows have been placed so that they project slightly beyond the adjoining stone walls, destroying to a considerable degree the classical intent of the original design. Within the building and still intact are two 1940 murals, Exposition and Holiday by Edgar Britton, who was in his younger years a student of Grant Wood. These murals were part of the WPA arts project carried out during the depression.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.