Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something
Nothing was collected or created yet.
Wainwright Building
View on Wikipedia
Wainwright Building | |
 | |
 Interactive map of Wainwright Building | |
| Location | St. Louis, Missouri |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°37′37″N 90°11′32″W / 38.62694°N 90.19222°W |
| Built | 1891 |
| Architect | Adler & Sullivan |
| Architectural style | Chicago school |
| NRHP reference No. | 68000054[1] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | May 23, 1968 |
| Designated NHL | May 23, 1968[2] |
The Wainwright Building (also known as the Wainwright State Office Building) is a 10-story, 41 m (135 ft) terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.[3] The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers. It was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and built between 1890 and 1891.[4] It was named for local brewer, building contractor, and financier Ellis Wainwright.[n 1]
The building, listed as a landmark both locally and nationally, is described as "a highly influential prototype of the modern office building" by the National Register of Historic Places.[1] Architect Frank Lloyd Wright called the Wainwright Building "the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as Architecture."[5]
In May 2013 it was listed by an episode of the PBS series 10 That Changed America as one of "10 Buildings That Changed America" because it was "the first skyscraper that truly looked the part" with Sullivan being dubbed the "Father of Skyscrapers".[6]
History
[edit]Commission, design and construction
[edit]The Wainwright Building was commissioned by Ellis Wainwright, a St. Louis brewer. Wainwright needed office space to manage the St Louis Brewers Association.[7] It was the second major commission for a tall building won by the Adler & Sullivan firm, which had grown to international prominence after the creation of the ten-story Auditorium Building in Chicago (designed in 1886 and completed in 1889).[8] As designed, the first floor of the Wainwright Building was intended for street-accessible shops, with the second floor filled with easily accessible public offices. The higher floors were for "honeycomb" offices, while the top floor was for water tanks and building machinery.[9]
Usage
[edit]
Upon its initial completion, the Wainwright Building was "popular with the people" and received "favorably" by critics.[7]
In 1968, the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark[10] and in 1972 it was named a city landmark.[11]
The Wainwright Building was initially rescued from demolition by the National Trust for Historic Preservation when the Trust took an option on the structure.[when?][12] Later, it was acquired by Missouri as part of a state office complex and the St. Louis Landmarks Association, in one of its early victories, is credited with having rescued the Wainwright Building from a construction project.[13]
The neighboring Lincoln Trust building (later known as the Title Guaranty building; designed by Eames and Young, built in 1898 at 706 Chestnut St.) was demolished to make way for the Gateway Mall in 1983. Carolyn Toft, Landmarks Association's executive director, stated that this building "... formed an ensemble with three other late-19th century commercial buildings, including [the Wainwright Building], that could not be equaled anywhere else in the country. Saving the Wainwright was important, but how much more important it would have been to save the entire group."[14] Architect John D. Randall led an extensive letter-writing campaign to the governor and other noted officials; the campaign resulted in the restoration of the building as a state office building instead of its demolition.[15]
The building housed state offices and was placed for sale in July 2024.[16] It was sold at a government auction that September for approximately $8 million.[17][18] The buyer, Park Equity LLC, is affiliated with Greater St. Louis Inc., an urban development fund.[17]
Architecture
[edit]Aesthetically, the Wainwright Building exemplifies Sullivan's theories about the tall building, which included a tripartite (three-part) composition (base-shaft-attic) based on the structure of the classical column,[19] and his desire to emphasize the height of the building. He wrote: "[The skyscraper] must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line." His 1896 article cited his Wainwright Building as an example.[20] Despite the classical column concept, the building's design was deliberately modern, featuring none of the neoclassical style that Sullivan held in contempt.[7]
Historian Carl W. Condit described the Wainwright as "a building with a strong, vigorously articulated base supporting a screen that constitutes a vivid image of powerful upward movement."[21] The base contained retail stores that required wide glazed openings; Sullivan's ornament made the supporting piers read as pillars. Above it the semi-public nature of offices up a single flight of stairs are expressed as broad windows in the curtain wall. A cornice separates the second floor from the grid of identical windows of the screen wall, where each window is "a cell in a honeycomb, nothing more".[22] The building's windows and horizontals were inset slightly behind columns and piers, as part of a "vertical aesthetic" to create what Sullivan called "a proud and soaring thing."[23] This perception has since been criticized as the skyscraper was designed to make money, not to serve as a symbol.[24]
The ornamentation for the building includes a wide frieze below the deep cornice, which expresses the formalized yet naturalistic celery-leaf foliage typical of Sullivan and published in his System of Architectural Ornament, decorated spandrels between the windows on the different floors and an elaborate door surround at the main entrance. "Apart from the slender brick piers, the only solids of the wall surface are the spandrel panels between the windows. ... . They have rich decorative patterns in low relief, varying in design and scale with each story."[25] The frieze is pierced by unobtrusive bull's-eye windows that light the top-story floor, originally containing water tanks and elevator machinery. The building includes embellishments of terra cotta,[26] a building material that was gaining popularity at the time of construction.[27]
One of Sullivan's primary concerns was the development of an architectural symbolism consisting of simple geometric, structural forms and organic ornamentation.[28] The Wainwright Building where he juxtaposed the objective-tectonic and the subjective-organic was the first demonstration of this symbolism.[28]
Unlike Sullivan, Adler described the building as a "plain business structure" stating:[29]
In a utilitarian age like ours it is safe to assume that the real-estate owner and the investor in buildings will continue to erect the class of buildings from which the greatest possible revenue can be obtained with the least possible outlay ... The purpose of erecting buildings other than those required for the shelter of their owners is specifically that of making investments for profit.[29]
The building is considered the first skyscraper to forgo the normal ornamentation used on skyscrapers at the time.[30]
Some architectural elements from the building have been removed in renovations and taken to the Sauget, Illinois storage site of the National Building Arts Center.[31]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Sullivan also designed the Wainwright Tomb in St. Louis's Bellefontaine Cemetery for his wife Charlotte Dickson Wainwright.
Citations
[edit]- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
- ^ "Wainwright Building". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2008.
- ^ "Wainwright Building". Structurae.
- ^ "skyscraper." The Columbia Encyclopedia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Credo Reference. Web. 25 March 2011.
- ^ Wright, Frank Lloyd (1931). "The Tyranny of the Skyscraper". Modern Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press: 85.
- ^ Bear, Rob (May 10, 2013). "Mapping PBS's 10 Buildings That Changed America". Curbed. Curbed.com. Archived from the original on May 29, 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
- ^ a b c Korom, Joseph J. (2008). The American Skyscraper, 1850–1940: A Celebration of Height. Branden Books. pp. 167. ISBN 978-0-8283-2188-4.
Wainwright Building.
- ^ Elstein, Rochelle Berger (Spring–Summer 2005). "Adler & Sullivan: The End of the Partnership and Its Aftermath". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 98 (1/2): 51–81.
- ^ van Zanten, David (March–April 2002). "Master of the Skyscraper". Humanities. 23 (2). Archived from the original on August 21, 2002.
- ^ National Historic Landmarks Program (NHL) Archived 2009-03-01 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Wainwright Building
- ^ St. Louis Historic Preservation
- ^ Matthew Hathaway (December 2, 2008). "New boss at Landmarks juggles many challenges Revitalization of Arch grounds could be agency's biggest preservation battle". St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
- ^ David Bonetti and Diane Toroian Keaggy (July 27, 2008). "Gone but not forgotten We asked our panel of experts to select demolished buildings that have left an unfillable gap in the cityscape or the city's collective memory". St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
- ^ "John D. Randall – ARCHITECT JOHN D. RANDALL HELPED TO BUILD SIUE, FOUGHT TO SAVE WAINWRIGHT BUILDING". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 16, 1999.
- ^ Roche, Daniel Jonas (July 10, 2024). "Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building is up for sale in St. Louis. But will it stay?". The Architect’s Newspaper. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
- ^ a b Hickman, Matt (September 25, 2024). "Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building in St. Louis Sells at Auction for $8 Million". Architectural Record. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
- ^ Henderson, Andrea Y. (September 3, 2024). "$8 million bid from Greater St. Louis Inc. wins historic Wainwright Building". STLPR. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
- ^ "THE CHICAGO SCHOOL, BEAUX-ARTS, AND THE CITY BEAUTIFUL." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: The Midwest. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 25 March 2011.
- ^ Sullivan, Louis H. (March 1896). "The tall office building artistically considered". Lippincott's Magazine. Archived from the original on May 29, 2008. Retrieved August 16, 2008.
- ^ Condit, Carl W. (1973). The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1875–1925. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-11455-4.
- ^ Sullivan, quoted in David Van Zanten, Sullivan's city: the meaning of ornament for Louis Sullivan.
- ^ "Sullivan, Louis H". The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1991. Retrieved March 25, 2011.(subscription required)
- ^ Hoffman, p. 3
- ^ Morrison, Hugh, Louis Sullivan: Prophet of Modern Architecture, W.W. Norton Company, New York, 1963, c. 1935 p. 146
- ^ Mike Michaelson (April 19, 2009). "More than meets the arch". Post-Tribune.
- ^ Mark Sommer (October 6, 2010). "Guaranty glows in film role – Landmark featured in documentary on famous architect". The Buffalo News.
- ^ a b "Sullivan, Louis H". Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 1998. Retrieved March 25, 2011.(subscription required)
- ^ a b Hoffman, p. 5
- ^ Glaeser, Edward (2011). "How Skyscrapers Can Save the City". Atlantic Monthly. 307 (2): 40–53. ISSN 1072-7825.
- ^ "List of Recovered Buildings". Archived from the original on November 17, 2009. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
Sources
[edit]- Glaeser, Edward (2011). "How Skyscrapers Can Save the City". Atlantic Monthly. 307 (2): 40–53. ISSN 1072-7825.
- "National Register of Historic Places: Inventory – Nomination Form" (PDF). Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved May 30, 2008.
- Hoffmann, Donald (January 13, 1998). Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and the skyscraper. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-40209-3. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
External links
[edit]
- Images and architectural information
- "Wainwright Building photographs". University of Missouri–St. Louis.
| Adler & Sullivan works |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Sullivan works |
| |
| Lost buildings |
| |
| Affiliations | ||
| Other | ||
Wainwright Building
View on GrokipediaHistory
Planning and Construction
In 1890, Ellis Wainwright, a prominent St. Louis brewer and financier, commissioned the construction of a new office building to serve as headquarters for managing the St. Louis Brewers Association, incorporating retail space on the lower levels alongside upper-floor offices.[7] The project was envisioned as a speculative venture amid the city's booming commercial district, reflecting Wainwright's broader investments in real estate and his brewing interests.[8] The site was selected at the prominent corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets in downtown St. Louis, Missouri—specifically 709 Chestnut Street—strategically positioned near key civic buildings like the Post Office and Customs House to maximize visibility and accessibility for tenants.[1] Wainwright chose the Chicago-based firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan for their established expertise in designing tall commercial structures, including pioneering use of steel framing in urban settings.[9] The design process began in late 1890, with Adler handling engineering aspects and Sullivan focusing on aesthetics that emphasized verticality to evoke the building's height and functional expression through a tripartite composition of base, shaft, and cornice.[2] This collaboration marked one of the firm's early fully realized steel-frame projects, adapting lessons from prior works to create a 10-story tower suited to St. Louis's dense skyline. Construction commenced with groundbreaking in 1890 and progressed rapidly, reaching completion in 1891 through innovative techniques such as prefabricated steel skeleton erection, which allowed for efficient vertical assembly despite the era's logistical challenges in sourcing and hoisting heavy members.[1] Engineers addressed fireproofing by integrating terracotta cladding over the steel frame and employing non-combustible materials like brick infill and granite at the base, ensuring the structure's safety and durability as one of the earliest true skyscrapers.[9] These methods not only overcame the engineering hurdles of erecting a tall building on a constrained urban lot but also set precedents for future high-rise construction in fire-prone cities.[8]Early Usage and Ownership
Upon its completion in 1891, the Wainwright Building served primarily as office space for Ellis Wainwright's brewing interests, including the St. Louis Brewers Association, with the ground floor dedicated to retail shops designed to display merchandise through large plate-glass windows.[10] This multi-use configuration aligned with the original intent for a versatile commercial structure in downtown St. Louis.[7] Throughout the 1890s and into the 1920s, the upper floors attracted a diverse tenant mix, including law firms, insurance companies, real estate offices, and other commercial entities, establishing the building as a key hub for the city's professional services.[11] The flexible interior layout, featuring movable partitions, allowed for efficient subdivision of spaces to accommodate varying business sizes and needs.[10] Ownership transitioned in 1905 when Ellis Wainwright sold the property to private investors, after fleeing to Paris as a fugitive following his indictment for bribery in a 1902 scandal.[11] It remained under private ownership through the mid-20th century, with original passenger elevators facilitating tenant access and minor interior adjustments supporting evolving commercial demands.[10] St. Louis's economic expansion in the early 20th century, fueled by its position as the nation's fourth-largest city and a dominant center for brewing and manufacturing, sustained high occupancy rates in the Wainwright Building by drawing businesses to its central location.[11] This prosperity, however, began to wane with the onset of Prohibition in 1920, indirectly pressuring commercial real estate like the Wainwright amid shifting industry dynamics.[11]Preservation and Recent Developments
In the mid-20th century, the Wainwright Building faced significant threats from St. Louis's urban renewal initiatives, particularly in the 1960s when surplus office space and redevelopment pressures led to plans for its demolition.[12] The building's survival was secured through a concerted preservation campaign spearheaded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which acquired an option on the property in 1967, and the St. Louis Landmarks Association, whose advocacy efforts highlighted its architectural importance.[13][14] These initiatives culminated in the building's designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1968 and a St. Louis City Landmark in 1972, ensuring its protection within the city's historic framework.[1][15] Following these designations, the building underwent major restoration in the late 1970s, funded by the state of Missouri, which transformed it into the Wainwright State Office Building. Reopened in 1981, the project restored key features like the terra cotta cladding and steel frame while adapting the interior for government use, marking a pivotal moment in its adaptive reuse.[8] This effort not only averted further decline but also reinforced the building's role as a cornerstone of St. Louis's historic districts, contributing to broader preservation advocacy that influenced regional landmark protections.[16] Ownership shifted dramatically in 2024 when the state auctioned the property for $8.25 million to Arch to Park Equity Fund LLC, an affiliate of Greater St. Louis Inc., amid plans for potential adaptive reuse such as residential or mixed-use development.[5] Ongoing maintenance remains a challenge, exemplified by periodic terra cotta repairs necessitated by weathering and material degradation, including incidents where fragments have fallen from the facade.[17] As of November 2025, the building is vacant following the state's relocation and is actively under redevelopment consideration, with no reported major structural alterations.[18][6]Architecture
Design Principles
The Wainwright Building exemplifies the Chicago School of architecture, which prioritized structural height, functional efficiency, and the innovative use of a skeletal steel frame to define the building's form. Designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan in 1890–1891, it marked a pivotal advancement in skyscraper design by treating the steel skeleton not merely as support but as the primary aesthetic and structural element, allowing for expansive open interiors and a taller profile that responded to the demands of urban commercial growth. This approach liberated the exterior walls from load-bearing duties, enabling them to serve as lightweight cladding that expressed the building's internal organization.[19][20] A key innovation was the tripartite division of the facade, dividing the structure into a base for public entry and retail, a shaft for office floors, and an attic or cap for mechanical systems and ornamental termination. This composition provided a novel, logical expression of the skyscraper's vertical form, analogous to a classical column yet stripped of historical mimicry to emphasize modern utility. Sullivan articulated this as a rational response to the building's programmatic needs, where each segment visually and functionally differentiated its purpose, setting a precedent for future high-rises.[21][22] Central to the design was Sullivan's philosophy that "form ever follows function," which manifested in a strong vertical emphasis through uninterrupted piers that conveyed height and stability while minimizing superfluous decoration. Ornamentation was subordinated to structure, applied sparingly to enhance rather than obscure the building's purpose, fostering a sense of organic unity between engineering and aesthetics. This principle rejected overloaded historicism in favor of abstraction, allowing the design to prioritize light, air, and circulation for office occupants.[7][23] Building on their earlier Auditorium Building of 1889, Adler and Sullivan advanced toward greater modern abstraction in the Wainwright, reducing eclectic references to focus on a uniquely American expression of verticality. Neoclassical elements, such as robust piers and spandrels, were integrated sparingly to articulate the building's height and rhythm without excess, transforming traditional motifs into functional accents that reinforced the steel frame's logic. This evolution highlighted Sullivan's vision of architecture as an expressive extension of technology and site, bridging their prior monumental work with emerging skyscraper ideals.[23][20]Exterior Features
The Wainwright Building's exterior exemplifies early skyscraper design through its steel frame clad in reddish-brown terra cotta and brick, creating a textured surface that aids in weather resistance while emphasizing verticality.[7][1][24] The facade employs a tripartite organization, dividing the structure into base, shaft, and attic levels. The base comprises the first two stories, faced in rusticated brown sandstone piers that support large, round-arched windows designed to provide access and visibility for retail spaces.[1] Rising above the base, the shaft consists of seven stories (floors 3 through 9) defined by continuous vertical red brick piers—corner piers three times wider than those framing the windows—interspersed with narrow, set-back windows and red terra cotta spandrel panels featuring ornate foliage reliefs, which together produce a curtain wall effect that accentuates the building's height.[1][15] The attic level, comprising the tenth story, is crowned by an overhanging cornice supported by a decorated frieze of intertwined leaf scrolls and Sullivan's organic motifs, punctuated by circular bull's-eye windows that add rhythmic ornamentation to the upper facade.[1][15] Standing at an overall architectural height of 44.8 meters (147 feet) across 10 stories, the building is located at coordinates 38°37′37″N 90°11′32″W in downtown St. Louis.[26][15] Over time, the exterior has undergone facade restorations, including repairs to terra cotta elements, to preserve its original aesthetic amid adaptations for modern lighting and signage that respect the historic design. In 2024, the building was sold to Arch to Park Equity Fund for $8.4 million, with a May 2025 request for proposals seeking adaptive reuse plans while maintaining architectural integrity; the state plans to vacate by the end of 2025.[17][27][24][28]Interior and Structural Innovations
The Wainwright Building's structural innovation lay in its pioneering use of a self-supporting steel skeleton frame, the first such completely iron and steel construction undertaken by the firm of Adler & Sullivan. This braced and riveted steel frame bore the entire load of the 10-story structure, eliminating the need for thick load-bearing masonry walls and enabling expansive open floor plans with flexible partitioning. Reinforced concrete raft footings provided stable support for the frame, marking an early advancement in foundation engineering for high-rise buildings.[1] Fireproofing was integral to the design, with all structural steel members encased in fireproof tiles to protect against the risks inherent in tall office buildings. Hollow terra cotta tiles were employed for floors, partitions, and encasements, forming arch-supported floor systems that combined lightweight construction with enhanced fire resistance and acoustic insulation. This approach not only met emerging building codes but also contributed to the building's longevity by preventing heat damage to the steel during potential fires.[1] The interior layout optimized functionality and natural illumination, featuring a skylighted ground floor dedicated to retail shops for public access and revenue generation. Above this, the upper floors adopted a U-shaped plan, with office suites arranged around central light wells and stairwells to ensure every workspace had perimeter exposure to daylight, reducing reliance on artificial lighting in an era before widespread electricity. This configuration supported efficient tenant customization while maintaining structural integrity.[1] Vertical circulation was handled by two hydraulically operated passenger elevators, an advanced feature for 1891 that allowed rapid access to upper levels and underscored the building's role as a modern office tower. These elevators, powered by water pressure systems, were housed in the central core alongside stairs, minimizing disruption to rentable space.[21] Mechanical systems represented early integration of utilities into the steel frame, with electrical wiring and plumbing routed through voids in the structure for discreet distribution to offices. The attic level accommodated service equipment, including boilers for heating and initial ventilation systems, reflecting contemporary engineering practices that prioritized safety and efficiency without compromising the open interior.[1] The building's footprint at 709 Chestnut Street supported floor areas designed to maximize natural light penetration through extensive window openings and the strategic light wells. This layout not only enhanced occupant comfort but also exemplified how structural innovations could drive practical usability in urban commercial architecture.[1]Significance and Legacy
Architectural Influence
The Wainwright Building is recognized as one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers, marking a pivotal moment in the expression of verticality in tall buildings through its unadorned steel-frame structure and emphasis on height.[1] This design philosophy, encapsulated in its tripartite form of base, shaft, and cornice, prioritized the inherent logic of the skyscraper's engineering, setting a precedent for future structures to visually articulate their structural skeleton rather than masking it with traditional masonry. Louis Sullivan himself regarded the Wainwright as a foundational work that shaped his subsequent projects, such as the Guaranty Building in Buffalo (1894–1896), where he further refined the vertical emphasis and organic ornamentation first explored in St. Louis; Sullivan described all his later commercial buildings as "conceived in the same general spirit."[2] The building also impacted contemporaries, including Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root, whose firm advanced Chicago School principles by adopting similar steel-frame expressions in works like the Monadnock Building (1891), building on Sullivan's shift away from load-bearing masonry toward lightweight cladding that highlighted structural efficiency.[29] Within the broader Chicago School, the Wainwright played a key role in evolving skyscraper aesthetics, promoting the use of non-structural terra cotta and brick as mere sheathing over steel skeletons, which allowed for greater height and openness compared to earlier masonry-dominated designs.[29] This approach influenced the transition to modernism, with architect Frank Lloyd Wright praising the Wainwright as "the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as architecture," crediting it as an early icon that inspired the clean lines and functionalism of the International Style decades later.[30] In comparisons to contemporaries, the Wainwright was more vertically articulated than William Le Baron Jenney's Home Insurance Building (1885) in Chicago—both ten stories but the former fully expressing its frame without partial masonry support—while appearing less ornate than Burnham and Root's Rookery Building (1888), which retained more eclectic decorative elements.[31] These distinctions underscored the Wainwright's influence in streamlining skyscraper form toward modernist ideals, as echoed in later International Style structures that owed a conceptual debt to Sullivan's St. Louis prototype.[32]Recognition and Cultural Impact
The Wainwright Building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968, recognizing its pioneering role in modern skyscraper design.[1] That same year, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its exceptional architectural merit as one of the earliest expressions of steel-frame construction and verticality in urban buildings.[1] In 1972, it received further protection as a St. Louis city landmark, underscoring its local cultural significance.[33] The building has been prominently featured in cultural depictions that highlight its historical importance. It appears in Ada Louise Huxtable's 1984 book The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered: The Search for a Skyscraper Style, where it exemplifies the evolution of high-rise aesthetics amid technological advances. Additionally, it has been the subject of preservation-focused documentaries, including the 2013 PBS series 10 That Changed America, which portrays it as a foundational influence on American architecture.[34] In educational contexts, the Wainwright Building is studied worldwide in architecture curricula as a proto-modernist exemplar, illustrating Louis Sullivan's principle of "form follows function" and the shift toward expressed structural elements.[7] Organizations such as the Landmarks Association of St. Louis offer guided tours that emphasize its innovative design, drawing architecture enthusiasts and professionals.[35] As a enduring symbol of St. Louis heritage, the building influences local urban planning by serving as a model for integrating historic structures into contemporary development, boosting tourism through its downtown prominence and architectural allure.[33] Its 2024 sale for $8.25 million has sparked discussions on adaptive reuse; as of May 2025, the new owner, Arch to Park Equity Fund LLC, issued a request for proposals seeking global ideas for redevelopment, highlighting ongoing efforts to preserve its legacy while adapting it for modern needs.[36][27]References
- https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/[planning](/page/Planning)/cultural-resources/city-landmarks/wainwright-builiding.cfm