I found some photos of the Security Building deep in the St. Louis Patina archives, and I thought they should see the light of day.
Security Building. 319 North Fourth Street. Photograph by Emil Boehl, ca. 1908. Missouri History Museum Photographs and Prints Collections. Commercial Buildings. N20316.
The standard story always goes is that it’s the last, or one of the last Romanesque Revival skyscrapers in St. Louis before the coming of the innovative Wainwright Building, but I feel like that is always selling it short, just like I recently wrote about how the original Romanesque style is always seen as an inferior, imperfect style “corrected” by the Gothic. And as I wrote in that St. Louis Magazine article, it’s more Rundbogenstil than pure Romanesque Revival, anyway.
It’s still a creative building, from the pink granite base that anchors the façade to the street.
To the triple arched alcoves that break up the monotony of the central portion of the tower.
The harshness of the corner is broken with the 45 degree cut of the curtain wall on the right.
