Tag Archives: restoration

Monumental Church

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Architect: Robert Mills
Date: 1812
Address: 1224 E Broad St

Holding a more prominent location on Broad Street in Court End but perhaps more forgotten than the adjacent Egyptian Building, Monumental Church was constructed thirty years prior to the MCV landmark and remains as an equally important structure.

The church was constructed in memoriam of the 72 people who died during the 1811 fire of the Richmond Theatre, including the governor of Virginia at the time. The fire was, at the time, the worst urban disaster in American history.

Chief Justice John Marshall commissioned the design of the monument and church, a process that caused some controversy between the neoclassical architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe and his employee, Robert Mills. The project was awarded to Mills, designer of the Washington Monument and the first American-born professional architect. The cause of his design in Richmond influenced his later interest in fireproofing measures.

Mills’s design is a condensed octagonal shape capped by a dome with a large, protruding portico. As the only architectural pupil of Thomas Jefferson, Mills’s design incorporates French influences, most notably the low Delorme dome. The building is one of the earliest and clearest examples of Greek revival in the country, with a strong focus on geometric proportion. The sparse neoclassicism holds a solemn, religious character despite its large scale surroundings.

While formerly an Episcopal Church and chapel for the Medical College of Virginia, the church is currently owned by the Historic Richmond Foundation and open only for tours and select private functions. The marble monument in the interior underwent an extensive process of renovation, chronicled in the documentary Saving Grace: Resurrecting American History. Yet the white stucco coat still symbolically serves as a grave for those whose ashes are stored in the crypt beneath the church and as a reminder of our city’s dedication to historical preservation, both tragedy and triumph.

M.F.A

Lewis F. Powell, Jr. United States Courthouse

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Architect: Ammi B. Young; renovations and additions by Mifflin E. Bell, James Knox Taylor, James A. Wetmore
Dates: 1858; renovations and additions in 1889, 1912, 1932
Address: 1000 E. Main St

Originally used as the Customs House and Post Office of Richmond, the Lewis F Powell Jr. Courthouse occupies half of a block downtown, directly south on axis with the Capitol building. The architect, Ammi B. Young, was serving as the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, during which time he was responsible for the design of thirty custom houses and post offices in American cities as well as the Treasury Building in Washington DC. During the Civil War the Courthouse was used as offices for the Confederacy, including that of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was later indicted for treason in the same building.

The refined, grand Italianate structure was clad with local Petersburg granite over brick bearing walls and had a wood, inflammable roof, materials which protected it from the fire of 1865, one of only two buildings in the area who can claim to have survived. Young employed the use of structural wrought iron, something very innovative for federal buildings at the time. Quoins on every corner emphasize the solid, gray body of the building, planted firmly on Bank St, with its three porticoes looking up towards Capitol Square.

The growth of federal government in the 20th century caused a need for physical expansion of the building, as the addition in 1912 multiplied the building’s size by more than 12. Numerous other alterations, including an Art Deco annex, window replacement, interior floor demolition and addition and expansion of wings, while in keeping with the aesthetic style, have dramatically changed Young’s original image of the governmental structure. The building’s longevity, historical function and architectural prominence are not overlooked in Richmond; efforts in 1999 restored the Greek revival Main St, the latest in preservation efforts.

M.F.A

Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School

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Architect: Carneal, Johnston and Wright, Restoration by BCWH with Saddler and Whitehead
Date: 1938, expansion in 1963, restoration in 2002
Address: 1000 N Lombardy St

Maggie Walker High School’s creation and image is the result of several incidents occurring at the same time. In 1934, a city icon in Maggie L. Walker passed, and Richmond wished to honor her name in some way. Virginia Union University sold recently vacated land to the city, and a new facility was required for the city’s black youth, segregated under the “Jim Crow” laws. These circumstances, in concurrence with the height of the art deco period, were the causes that brought Carneal, Johnston and Wright’s high school to become one of the most significant educational buildings in the city.

The same architects’ extensive expansion in 1963 added to the original plan of two joined Y shapes and the building today exists largely as a realization of these two efforts. Limestone and concrete are paired handsomely with a dark red brick, while lime green accenting, glass block and subtle art deco ornamentation complete the sophisticated structure’s image.

The school’s interior plan is regular and predictable, a classically symmetrical arrangement that lends a navigable yet repetitive experience. Staircases hinge the building’s wings on the ends that house classrooms, while larger program such as the auditorium, gym, common room and cafeteria are clustered in the center.

While the iconic elevation of Maggie L. Walker High School is its grand entrance on Lombardy Street, the opposite entrance is the most heavily trafficked, and another common vista is from the I-95 overpass, above the athletic fields and parking lot north of the school.

The high school began as exclusively African American, but a historic documentation and restoration from Sadler and Whitehead with BCWH in 2002 opened the doors for the Governor’s School of Government and International Studies. Hopefully this sensitive modern restoration signifies the school as an important Richmond landmark that must be cared for, and one that will last.

M.F.A