Photographer: Sam Fentress | ArchDaily

Dispatched: Architecture of the American Post Office and the Privatization of Civic Space

Olivia Poston — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Post offices stand among the most enduring monuments of civic life in the United States. Across towns and city centers, they carry the shifting architectural ambitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Greek Revival formality to Beaux-Arts monumentality and Art Deco ornament. Architects and federal planners would give these buildings a clear public role and a powerful physical presence. Stone façades, monumental halls, and crafted interiors projected stability, trust, and permanence. The post office placed the federal government directly into the everyday landscape of American life.

Brown and Crouppen King’s Hill Headquarters / HOK

Hana Abdel — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Brown & Crouppen's new headquarters transforms a century-old stove factory into a workplace that competes with the comfort of home while honoring St. Louis' industrial heritage.

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's Powell Hall / Snøhetta

Susanna Moreira — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Beginning in 2019, Snøhetta, in collaboration with Christener Architects, Schuler Shook, BSI Constructors, and Kirkegaard, led the expansion and modernization of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's historic performance space, Powell Hall. To ring in the hall's centennial in 2025, the organization embarked on an ambitious 64,000-square-foot expansion with Snøhetta as design architect and landscape architect. The project will allow the concert hall to be more fully accessible and open to the community, creating a facility that supports and nurtures the creative process from idea to performance.

One Hundred / Studio Gang

Paula Pintos — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 11:00:00 +0000

One Hundred is a residential tower overlooking Forest Park in St. Louis. The tower, Studio Gang’s first project in the city, will rise to over 380 feet and include retail, amenities, parking, and residential apartments with views of the park to the west and the Gateway Arch to the east.

Nameless Buildings Affect Us

Duo Dickinson — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 03:30:00 +0000

Architecture is human. So when I entered Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1973 and the entire faculty were as white and male as I was, it made no sense to me but reflected the end times of the full-on male dominance in my chosen profession. In that world, a few professors would often comment on how female students looked at juries, and some sexually victimized some students (none of whom were male).

Kempegowda International Airport / HOK

Rayen Sagredo — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 19:00:00 +0000

The expansion of Terminal 1 repositions South India’s busiest airport as an important hub for international travelers and cargo.

Museum at Prairiefire / Verner Johnson

Rayen Sagredo — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 08:00:00 +0000

The architecture of the Museum at Prairiefire in Overland Park, Kansas celebrates the rich story of the region, stemming from the Kansas tradition of controlled prairie burns. Real Estate developer, Merrill Companies, contacted prominent Museum and Architect Planners – Verner Johnson to aid in creating a structure that would match the surrounding landscape. Jonathan Kharfen, the lead architect on the project examined the landscape and its characteristics and developed an idea to create a building that looked like flames ablaze in the fields. The design evoked a sense of irony, according to Jonathan, “It’s not traditionally a building’s job to conjure up images of fire, in fact, it’s quite the opposite”. The obstacle presented here was how to capture the upward and expansive movement of fire, adding animation to a building constructed of lifeless materials. The solution was to use a combination of multi-colored, iridescent stainless steel tiles, mixed with an innovative use of Dichroic Glass. These products, in conjunction with the stone volumes as a backdrop, provided durability and design versatility, resulting in vivid, inextinguishable color.

7 Projects Announced as Winners of 2017 AIA National Healthcare Design Awards

Patrick Lynch — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 14:00:00 +0000

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) has selected seven recipients of 2017 AIA National Healthcare Design Awards, given to the year’s best projects in healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research. Projects were selected for displaying “conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a hospital.”

AIA Names the Best Housing Projects of 2017

Patrick Lynch — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 13:15:00 +0000

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has named the fourteen projects selected as recipients of the 2017 Housing Awards. Now in its 17th year, the AIA’s Housing Awards program was established to recognize "the best in housing design and promote the importance of good housing as a necessity of life." Projects are awarded in four categories: One/Two Family Custom Housing, One/Two Family Production Housing, Multifamily Housing and Special Housing.

Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center / Trivers Associates

Karen Valenzuela — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 11:00:00 +0000

Sited on the edge of suburban St. Louis and rural Missouri, Laumeier Sculpture Park is an icon of the arts in the St. Louis region and one the most prestigious open-air museums in the country. In an effort to not only display artwork year-round in a controlled environment, but also enhance their ability to provide high-quality learning experiences for the greater St. Louis community and for visitors from all over the world, Trivers Associates was commissioned to design the new Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center (AAFAC), park entry plaza, and renovate the original Estate House into the Kranzberg Education Lab.

Old Post Office Plaza / Baird Sampson Neuert Architects

Christopher Henry — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The winning design of an international competition, Old Post Office Plaza serves as an urban catalyst for revitalization while forming an iconic event space for downtown St. Louis. Inspired by a large public sculpture, “the Torso of Icaro” by noted sculptor Igor Mitoraj and donated for installation in the project, the design creates a three dimensional armature of spaces and program that spiral upward and around the work to explore the deeper structure of ideas that the myth of Daedelus and Ikarus evokes. Not only was Daedalus the key protagonist of one of the great narratives of flight and fall, he was associated with early manifestations of public space and public art in ancient Greece, as an archetypal architect and sculptor.