Peoples Savings Bank

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The Peoples Savings Bank, located at 101 3rd Avenue, SW, was a building was designed by Louis Sullivan in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sullivan's initial design was completed in the summer of 1909 but was rejected by the bank as being too expensive. This caused Sullivan to reflect (Trombly) that he would not design any more small banks, but the next year his Cedar Rapids clients, spearheaded by the bank Vice-President Fred Shaver (whom local Cedar Rapids tradition has Sullivan designing a remodeling of his residence), continued their negotiations with him and an agreement was reached. Sullivan began this study of the bank and its functions beginning with the large banking room and working out from there while reducing the cost of the structure by cutting back on the terra cotta ornamentation. The building was finished in 1912.

The prominent architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler said of it at the time that, " The building is thus clearly designed from within outward. The exterior is the envelope of the interior reduced to its very simplest expression." (Wilson and Robinson)

The bricks for the exterior of the building were produced in 15 different shades, producing, as Sullivan remarked, "the effect of an antique Oriental rug." (Twombly) The interior of the building includes clerestory walls of glass with murals by Allen Philbrick depicting life in rural Iowa.

This bank was the last commission that George Elmslie assisted Sullivan on. Shortly after its completion Elmslie formed his own company with his partner William Gray Purcell.

terra cotta detail

[edit] Sources

Elia, Mario Manieri, Louis Henry Sullivan, Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton NY, 1996
Gebhard, David & Gerald Mansheim, Building of Iowa, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993
Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, The Louis Sullivan Pilgrimage, unpublished manuscript
Twombly, Robert, Louis Sullivan: His Life and Work, Elizabeth Sifton Books - Viking, New York, 1986
Wilson, Richard Guy and Sidney K. Robinson, The Prairie School in Iowa, Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, 1977