× Expand Photography by Chris Naffziger Baths of Caracalla

The dawn of the 20th century brought new optimism to America and St. Louis. The economy of the city and the nation was thriving. The recent 1900 census showed the population of St. Louis had risen to 572,238, an increase of just under 125,000 from 1890. Theodore Link’s massive Union Station was rapidly becoming one of the busiest train terminals in the world. The new century called for a new monumentality in architecture, one that the Romantic Era revival styles of the 19th century could no longer provide.

As I’ve covered in past articles, American architects borrowed heavily from European models, such as the Italianate, Second Empire, Romanesque, and Gothic styles. At the very beginning of the United States, however, through the writings of theorists such as Thomas Jefferson, himself an amateur architect, Americans had first embraced the Neoclassical and Greek Revival styles. Our own Old Courthouse and Old Cathedral are excellent examples of buildings that look to the ancient world for architectural inspiration. But Greek and Roman temples had no windows, an impediment for living in them, as one 19th-century architect joked, and the ancient world’s influence fell out of favor before the Civil War as more “practical” later styles rose in prominence.

By 1900, however, the ancient world came back into style, through the French École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where the leading architects of the era trained. While a love for the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans was a critical component of this new Beaux-Arts style, another critical element, the architecture of the Italian Renaissance, factored in heavily. Not surprisingly then, the role of draughtsmanship, so heavily emphasized by the Italian Renaissance artist and theorist Leon Battista Alberti, whose book on architecture I’ve discussed before, led to a golden era of drawings and watercolors of some of Europe’s most famous buildings. Cass Gilbert, who would leave his own mark on St. Louis, captures this elegant era of drawing in one of the great archetypes of the ancient Romans, the Baths of Caracalla.

Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum Cass Gilbert, Baths of Caracalla, Rome, 1880

The end of each student’s training at the École des Beaux-Arts would consist of a residency in Italy, where he would study the great buildings of the ancient past and the Renaissance. For a sort of “final project,” he would select a Roman ruin, and then “reconstruct” the building in its original appearance. The Italian Renaissance had emphasized the importance of ingenio, or the ability of the artist to use his imagination, and this final test challenged him to do just that with only ruins in front of him as a guide. After all, when he returned home, he would be receiving commissions to new types of buildings such as railroad stations, something the Romans and Renaissance never envisioned, and he needed to come up with modern solutions. In St. Louis, we have a bounty of Beaux-Arts buildings that remind us of this era of optimism.

× Expand Photography courtesy of the Missouri History Museum Holy Corners, from Left, Tuscan Temple, St. Johns' Methodist Church, Temple Israel, c. 1910,

Former St. John’s Methodist Church/Link Auction Galleries

For one of the anchors of Holy Corners in the Central West End, Theodore Link demonstrated in 1901 that he could adapt to changing tastes, pivoting away from the Romanesque Revival of Union Station or the nearby Second Presbyterian Church and work in the Beaux-Arts style. Link faced an interesting challenge: St. John’s Methodist Church was near two major arteries, with Washington Boulevard to the north and Kingshighway to the east. He was inspired by the Erechtheion on Athens’ Acropolis to create an edifice with two temple pediments. Essentially the church has two public entrances, and there is no awkward side to the church facing one of its two major thoroughfares. But he also invented—there were no church bell towers in ancient Greece, so he created a pedimented campanile that ties the temple fronts together visually.

× Expand Photograph by Chris Naffziger Cass Gilbert, Saint Louis Art Museum

The Saint Louis Art Museum

Commissioned from Cass Gilbert as the Palace of Fine Arts for the World’s Fair, what is now the Saint Louis Art Museum was originally part of a four-building ensemble that opened in 1904. The other three buildings, while constructed of brick to be fireproof, were only temporary. Gilbert faced a challenge: Although art galleries existed in the ancient world, none were as large as what was needed for the World’s Fair. He chose a logical monumental building for inspiration, turning to the Baths of Caracalla, the huge public bathing complex on the Caelian Hill in Rome. Its soaring vaults provided the inspiration for Sculpture Hall, while its sprawling corridors provided the model for the Art Museum’s two wings of galleries. Gilbert’s plans even included a gigantic expansion with a huge Pantheon-like dome and other wings, but they never came to fruition.

× Expand Photography by Chris Naffziger Cass Gilbert, Central Library

Central Library

Gilbert’s next commission came out of a meeting in a courtroom; the architect had sued the World’s Fair committee, arguing he should have been paid for four commissions in 1904, not one, since the Palace of Fine Arts contained four buildings. Nonetheless, the leaders of St. Louis felt they could find no better architect to design the new Central Library, which would be a new palace of knowledge, completed in 1912. Combining the long arcade of the Tabularium, the ancient Roman hall of records on the Capitoline Hill with the Renaissance design of Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese, Gilbert adorned the interior with lavish materials. The ceilings of the reading rooms glow with intricate carvings, alabaster torchiers illuminate passageways, and polished stone walls reflect the light through spacious windows. Gilbert and St. Louis had reconciled in grand manner.

× Expand Photography by Chris Naffziger Missouri History Museum

Missouri History Museum/Jefferson Memorial

Coming out of the World’s Fair, the Jefferson Memorial, later the home of the Missouri History Museum, is also an expression of the Beaux-Arts style. Designed by St. Louis architect Isaac Taylor, the 1913 Museum harkens back to the Propylaia, the ceremonial gateway that guarded the entrance to the Acropolis. Much like its St. Louis counterpart, the Athenian gateway contained a painting gallery to the side, known as the Pinacoteca. The central loggia of the Museum also takes inspiration to the open breezeways popular in Italian Renaissance architecture.

× Expand Photograph by W.C. Persons, after 1936, Missouri History Museum Temple Israel

Temple Israel

Finally, our last Beaux-Arts building is a synagogue for Temple Israel designed by Tom P. Barnett, the son of famed early St. Louis architect George I. Barnett, who I looked at last year. Designed in 1908 to look like an imposing Roman temple one would expect to see in one of the imperial forums, the huge Corinthian order columns that form the front entrance are perhaps the most beautifully sculpted in the city. And despite 19th-century critics’ complaints, Barnett managed to find a way to put windows in the synagogue.