Tag Archives: Adaptive Reuse

Morson’s Row

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Morson's Row 1


Architect: Albert Lybrock
Date: 1853
Address: 219-223 Governor Street

Morson’s Row is the most handsome assemblage of attached houses in Richmond. These three former dwellings in the Italianate style establish an axial relationship at the eastern end of the pedestrian mall that was once Capitol Street while gently stepping down to reflect the slope of Governor Street. Morson’s Row is grander than other, upscale, mid-19th century dwellings in Richmond– more akin to houses one would find in urban Baltimore or Boston. They were designed as speculative housing by James Marion Morson, a lawyer who practiced in the city and in Goochland County.

Architect Albert Lybrock, born and educated in Germany, came to Richmond in 1852 via New York City, to oversee his design for the United States Customs House which stretched between Main and Bank streets. He would become the most important architect working in Richmond in the prosperous decade prior to the Civil War after landing a number of prestigious commissions here. In addition to his Italianate customs building, his commissions included major interior renovations at the Capitol (1858) and the unique, cast iron Gothic reliquary in Hollywood Cemetery that contains the sarcophagus of James Monroe, the fifth United States president (1859). In the late 1870s Lybrock designed the Miller School in Albemarle County.

While the three townhouses comprising Morson’s Row were built as speculative housing, there was no stinting on detail. Each house is three stories high and rises from an English basement. The most glorious feature of each of the three houses is its curved bow front.  Each of these bays rises to a partial entablature containing crisply defined dentils and a generous cornice supported by handsome brackets. The basement is faced with granite ashlar and the upper exterior surfaces of the façade are brick covered in stucco.

This trio of houses creates an almost musical rhythm as it steps down (or ascends) Governor Street. And the softly-rounded lines of bow fronts are picked up by the curved configuration of the sun porch on the rear of the adjacent Memorial Hospital (now part of the Virginia Department of Highways complex) just up the hill.

Architect Lybrock, himself a slave owner, apparently became an active player in the life of his adopted region including his financial support of a regiment of local Germans in the Confederate army.

Morson’s Row, now owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and an important part of the Capitol Square district, has long been empty and awaits a new use. Miraculously, its interiors still contain much of their original detailing such as moldings and marble mantels.


E.S.

First National Bank Building

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First National 2


Alfred Bossom
825-827 East Main St
1913

The First National Bank was founded eight days after Lee’s surrender in Appomattox, when all Richmond banks’ charters had been revoked by the Federal Government. It merged with the National Exchange Bank and, after surviving the financial crisis of the 1890s, needed a new office building, for which Alfred Bossom was hired.

Bossom was an English architect responsible for stately banks and hotels across the nation, and was with the firm on Clinton and Russell when asked to design the building. Bossom’s other commissions in the city include the Monroe Terrace Apartments, the Prestwould Apartments, and the Mutual and Virginia Trust Buildings (in collaboration with Carneal and Johnson), adjacent to the First National Bank Building, forming a prominent early 20th Century financial core on Main Street.

Like the much of the rest of Bossom’s work, the First National Bank Building is proud neoclassicism with crisp detailing. The exterior exhibits clearly the three sections attributable to most neoclassicist works, especially taller ones: base, shaft, and capital; a symbolic continuation of the proportions found on the 50 foot tall fluted Corinthian columns at the foot of the bank. Neoclassicism was a common style of banks and other institutions who wanted to evoke the order and authority of great civilizations in history.

The structure can claim to be the first skyscraper in Richmond, and held the title of tallest building until it was surpassed by the Central National Bank Building 17 years later. Since its birth it has undergone a fair amount of change; the larger original cornice was replaced in the 1970s in an effort to modernize the structure’s appearance, and while the building avoided a transformation into condominiums in the 1980s, it was converted into apartments in late 2012. Under Commonwealth Architects, the building underwent a $30 million renovation. The renovation relied on historic tax credits, with key features of the building, like the marble detailing and ceiling vaults in the first floor former bank space, kept intact.

The new life of the building adds much-needed residences to the area, joining the nearby John Marshall as recently converted, high-profile historic apartments. It is encouraging to see the First National Bank Building, so iconic in Richmond’s past, assume an active and important role in the city’s contemporary downtown.

M.F.A.

Retail Design in Richmond Part I: Need Supply and Black Swan Books

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Need Supply Co. 2


Need Supply Co.

Architect: BAM Architects
Dates: 2007-2010
Address: 3100 West Cary Street 23221

Black Swan Books

Architect: BAM Architects
Dates: 2003
Address: 2601 West Main Street

Since 1996, Need Supply Co. has dealt in boutique women’s and menswear from its store in Richmond. Over the years, it has developed a large online presence. Recently, it was named as one of the 25 Best menswear stores in the nation by GQ magazine. This accolade is due largely to the items that Need Supply carries but, as the article made clear, the aesthetic of the store itself was a large factor in the decision.

Need Supply Co. is headquartered in Carytown, the city’s most fashionable shopping district. Its corner site consists of a low, brick building with a large, cantilevered overhang. The building was given a thorough renovation by Richmond-based BAM Architects before Need was able to move in.

The result is easily one of the most striking and contemporary commercial spaces in Richmond. Exterior brick was stripped leaving its rough texture exposed; wood and steel structural features were given the same treatment. Handsome clothes racks, lighting fixtures, and casework complements the architecture. The company’s spare graphic design and signage program completes a total aesthetic that is as much about what isn’t there as what is.

Black Swan Books, another BAM Architects project several blocks away in the Fan District, takes a more traditional approach. Serifed fonts adorn the facade and packed bookcases fill the room. Upon closer observation, many similarities between Black Swan and Need Supply can be seen.  Exposed ductwork and raw materials are a constant though in this context they complement worn leather binding and blonde wood moldings rather than spare clothing displays. Black Swan’s extensive collection of rare books is housed in contemporary casework.

D.OK.

Virginia Commonwealth University Cary Street Gym

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Architect: Wilfred E. Cutshaw
Date: 1891
Address: 101 S. Linden St.

2010 renovation and expansion by Moseley Architects (lead), Smith+McClane Architects (exterior) and Hastings+Chiverta Architects (consulting)

There may be no more popular building on the Virginia Commonwealth University Monroe Park campus than the Cary Street Gym on the southern edge of the sprawling grounds. This late-19th century city market, which was later converted into a municipal auditorium, has recently found new life as a fitness center for one of the state’s largest universities. In the most recent conversion, completed in 2010, the architects respected totally the solid bones of the granite and red brick Italianate structure, but expanded it substantially by wrapping an L-shaped addition around the eastern and southern sides of the building. The addition, which brings the total square footage to 125,000 square feet, is highly sympathetic to the original structure while also respecting the pedestrian scale of its Oregon Hill neighbors.

The elegantly-proportioned and well-detailed former two-story market was designed by  Wilfred E. Cutshaw, a Richmond city engineer. It recalls similar structures in the days before refrigeration in such cities as Washington, D.C., Florence, Italy and Barcelona. Large windows, broad door openings and high ceilings eased comings and goings and allowed for good ventilation in an era before air conditioning.

In converting the barn-like structure into a university fitness center, the team of architects cleaned up the bones of the building and treaded lightly in the design of the their additions. Today, gym rats enter from the western, Linden Street side of the building by passing under a new loggia that announces the entry while not overwhelming the landmark. Upon entering, the reception area is just a few steps to the right. Enticing views of the open weight room and climbing wall are visible beyond a lattice-like metal screen.

On the eastern side of the old building and fronting Cherry Street, four adjacent basketball courts have been added. These are easily convertible for other sports. One flight up and encircling the space is an indoor track. On the south side of the former market an aquatics center and indoor practice field provide additional activities areas. Glorious natural light floods the interior. The exteriors on the eastern and southern sides, while unnecessarily busy, still mesh harmoniously with the modest Oregon Hill dwellings nearby.

The Cary Street Gym provides a textbook case in excellent adaptive reuse and savvy, but sensitive infill design.

E.S.

Richmond Ballet Building

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Architect: BCWH
Date: 2000
Address: 407 East Canal Street

One of the creative and culture hubs of Richmond exists in an awkward spot of Canal St, immediately bordered on three sides by parking and the Downtown Expressway on the other. Yet the quality of design doesn’t suffer from it. A marvelous 52,000 square foot renovation to a 1928 concrete factory houses the Richmond Ballet.

The design philosophy, according to the architect, was “a new lightweight structure of steel and glass designed to literally hang off, or ‘dance’ on, the face of the existing concrete frame, embodying the motion, tension, energy and dynamic of dance.” It certainly maintains an aesthetic of a factory through exposed duct work and gray stone. The building uses an innovative method of shifting practice spaces into performance spaces, utilizing square footage as much as possible. The practice spaces open up not only to the outside in order to receive light but also to the interior bent halls, enlivening the whole building with the movement of the dancers within. The mostly transparent structure enables passers-by to visually participate in the inherently performative quality of dance, the practice and exhibition spaces on the top floors slightly leaning out from the building, announcing themselves. An angled entrance awning suspended by cables on the northern side of the pre-existing structure externally alludes to the new intervention, as a similar angling appears on the roof of the south end of the building.

With construction funds provided by Reynolds Metals Company, state of the art technology was installed such as cushioned flooring and sound-proof walls and ceilings. Other amenities of the new structure include six dance studios, a library, box office, freight elevator and set and costume design studio.

M.F.A.
BCWH. (n.d.). Richmond ballet. Retrieved from http://www.bcwh.com/work/categories.asp?categoryID=D1E21CBA-695C-495E-A1FC-8DB51E6A0CC0Richmond Ballet. (2008). History and mission. Retrieved from http://www.richmondballet.com/aboutrb/historymission.aspx