Architecture Archives - Lafayette Square Archives

Flying In The Facade Of History

Desiring a more urban experience, we left the suburbs for Lafayette Square in 2013. The area appealed to us as a distinctive and historic slice of St. Louis. A lovely park, small commercial area and extensive architectural preservation made us want to be part of the neighborhood. It holds both city and national historic district status, and a strong commitment from its residents toward preserving its Victorian look and feel.

Compromising the past

People visiting Lafayette Square for the first time wander the neighborhood in a sort of reverie, wondering about the times, architects, materials and restoration involved in the century-old brick beauties there.

In conjunction with the City of St. Louis Plan Commission, architectural standards for both new construction and exterior remodeling took effect decades ago. Adherence to them has ensured that a uniquely preserved part of Gilded Age St. Louis has remained intact.

A large lot on the southern edge of the historic district sat idle for years. Its redevelopment began around 2019. Neighborhood meetings were arranged to promote the developer’s vision for a new apartment complex. It would have 120 or so units, and blend into the neighborhood, creating attractive infill and opportunity for residential growth.

As the plans developed, historic codes were challenged and overruled, in the interest of moving the project forward. 2200 Lasalle opened in 2023.

2200 LaSalle complex; forrentuniversity.com

What resulted is more an expression of blasé sameness than any compelling or complimentary architectural statement. Its ‘five over one’ design, with a wood frame superstructure atop a concrete podium, is designed to be more economical to construct than a traditional steel and concrete building.

Not that the economy of construction keeps rents affordable. It faces Chouteau Avenue, a fairly nondescript truck route south of downtown. A rooftop pool, underground garage, pet park and fitness center are features intended to attract young professionals. In May of 2025, Apartments.com cited a city-wide average of $1,300 per month rent for a two bedroom unit. A similar space on the second floor of Lafayette Square’s new apartments currently rents for over $2,200 per month. As of July 14, 2025, 2200 LaSalle was approximately 85% rented.

The ubiquity of a contemporary form

The five over one style, also known as Fast-Casual Architecture, took hold around 2010. It has since multiplied around St. Louis like Bradford pear trees. Examples now line Forest Park Avenue, and serve as apartments, hotels, retirement communities and even offices like St. Louis’s otherwise stylistically aware Cortex.

In a recent essay, Cory Lefkowitz opined on the juxtaposition of Fast-Casual Architecture on areas of former distinction:

it’s downright shameful that we deprive ourselves of living in interesting, meaningful, and wonderful places, given the thousands of precedents for inspiration… Instead, we’ve copied and pasted to our society from the most anodyne, the most boring, and the most bleh.

The look has become a contemporary architectural cliche, unbroken walls for streetscape, and a numbing redundancy that makes one city’s residential stock indistinguishable from that of another. Even Kirkwood in St. Louis County has embraced the look. It increases city residency, but diminishes the same charm that attracted residents in the first place.

The James; c/o Parker Pence of The Kirkwood Gadfly

It’s great to have housing, and we need more of it. But we hire large architectural firms to design and build blocks of dull rectilinear boxes, placing them in areas of projected hot demand. It lessens the wonder and attractiveness of nearby areas of genuine interest while adding only rentable space.

Summary

I’ve written a lot about the old German House building at the corner of Jefferson and Lafayette Avenues. Despite a strong architectural and historical significance and prime location, it sits unloved, on sale for a song. Because it’s not easy, and because it’s expensive to do, it resists rehab interest, while McUrbanism prospers. The heritage of the neighborhood would only be enhanced by bringing it back. It would be further credit to a fantastic neighborhood in its fifty year restoration. Perhaps we’re missing something in our priorities.

Resources

Why Everywhere Looks The Same; Cory Lefkowitz; https://marker.medium.com/why-everywhere-looks-the-same-248940f12c4

The Age Of Average; Alex Murrell; https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average?ref=thebrowser.com&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

St. Louis two bedroom apartment cost average from Apartments.com at https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/saint-louis-mo/

2200 Lasalle at Lafayette Square; marketing piece at https://www.2200lasalle.com

The German House in Lafayette Square is available for sale through CBRE at https://www.cbre.com/properties/properties-for-lease/flexindustrial/details/US-SMPL-85559/2345-lafayette-avenue-st-louis-mo-63104

The most recent historic codes for Lafayette Square (December, 2018) are available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-laws/upload/legislative//Ordinances/BOAPdf/70926.pdf

For more on the story of German House, you can check my archive to the right for September, 2020. Here’s the first in the series from this blog: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1928-1942-german-house-the-earliest-years/

1880: Building Styles Of Lafayette Square

Lafayette Square bears historic designations from both the City of St Louis and the National Register of Historic Places. They bestow an enforced permanence to the look of the Square. Recognition of the authentic and increasingly rare Victorian Age style in our buildings ensures their survival. There are various forms and combinations of styles in our architecture, but following are four major types. Let’s say you have relatives or guests in from the suburbs. You want to give them the straight scoop on what the heck is a mansard. Here is a brief field guide.

1849: Like A Ton Of Bricks (Part 1)

“Architecture starts when you carefully place two bricks together. There it begins.”
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

You build with what you have at hand. St Louis was geographically gifted for growth by sitting atop two dandy sources of construction materials – limestone and clay. As function also leads to fashion, you only have to stroll around Lafayette Square to witness the flights of imagination launched by architects working with bricks from fired clay.

The walls of a frame house left to nature will last about five years before beginning to fall apart. The walls of a brick structure can stand for a hundred. Old home preservationists get the benefit of a head start in St. Louis City. We often talk about an otherwise decrepit house as having “good bones”.

Manchester clay to St. Louis bricks

The area of Manchester Road that parallels the River Des Peres between Kingshighway and McCausland was a rich source of brick clay. Two miles wide and four miles long, a one to two foot seam of high quality clay ran east to west. This district was mined using shafts and slopes. Frequent blasting loosened the clay for easier removal. Brick factories developed as close as possible to the source of supply.. Called Cheltenham today, the area attracted Irish and Italian immigrants to work the deposits. In turn, clay mining and brick making helped establish both Dogtown and the Hill. These neighborhoods flanked the mines to the north and south. The mines operated from the 1850’s into the 1940’s.

*Sketch of fire brick works, pre-1904, from “The Clay Working Plants Of St Louis.” As early as 1839, St Louis brickyards were turning out in excess of 20 million bricks annually.*

“In 1849, the steamboat White Cloud caught fire and drifted into the riverfront wharves. A third of the city went up in the subsequent blaze. A hurriedly-passed local ordinance forbade the construction of wooden buildings, and St. Louis became even more predominantly brick.

Firebrick from St. Louis kilns proved suitable not only for buildings and streets, but also for sewer lines under the fast-growing metropolis. St. Louis truly was (and remains) a brick city.

In this detail from an 1874 Currier and Ives print, note the distinctive terracotta shade of the brick city.

Ready availability, low cost of production and transportation, and a friendly zoning ordinance combined to promote a distinct city architecture. Within this singular theme of brick exist striking variations.

Still a vibrant expression of the past

You won’t find such an array of styles within a single building material as you do with St. Louis City and brick. Pittsburgh and Baltimore might come close, but walk Benton Park, Downtown, Lacledes Landing, Soulard and Lafayette Square, then find another city like this. We take it for granted since it surrounds us like air and water – part of our urban environment.

On January 10th, 2018 Lara Hamdan, KWMU radio and Don Marsh presented an episode of the excellent St Louis On The Air series that discussed Evens-Howard Place, an area approximately where the Brentwood Prominade is today. It was a vibrant middle-class African American neighborhood collectively engaged in fire brick production.

In part two, a deeper dive into a specific and influential company with Lafayette Square roots; The Hydraulic Press Brick Company. Right here next week: lafayettesquarearchives.com/1872-like-a-ton-of-bricks-part-2/

Resources

(1) Urbanist Dispatch

(2) Rome of the West (Blog)

(3) Dotage St. Louis (Blog)

KWMU 90.7 FM Radio St. Louis