Richmond’s Old City Hall is an architectural and, to a degree, governmental landmark. The winning design was scrapped because the $300,000 cost was deemed too expensive. The city then accepted a more modest proposal from a different architect, only to reverse course again to build Elijah Myers’ Gothic design. The actual cost wound up more […]
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Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is among Richmond’s tallest buildings, and visually a near-twin of Dominion Energy’s One James River Plaza building, which was demolished in 2020. The skyscraper was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect who designed New York’s ill-fated World Trade Center towers. Interesting factoid: Almost half of the building’s total square footage,
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Virginia Housing is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable housing. I haven’t found any details about their headquarters on Gambles Hill. Name: Virginia Housing Location: 601 South Belvidere Street Style: Postmodern Google Map All images copyright © Kenneth Grant / photos taken October 2019 with Canon 5D Mark iv
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First National Bank Building was Richmond’s first high-rise building, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Surprisingly (to me, at least), this 1913 landmark was built as a bank but commissioned by a railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company. The massive brick-and-stone building is an example how architects originally envisioned high-rise buildings – as
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Gateway Plaza is an aluminum and glass high-rise office building overlooking Kanawha Plaza. Visually, the building appears to be three stacked boxes, each with a different façade treatment. Along South 9th Street, the slim office tower has a retail and lobby base. The western section has a metal-skinned parking garage base, surmounted by an office
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Ethyl Corporation headquarters, atop Gambles Hill, fools many Richmond visitors. It looks like a capitol, or at least a governor’s mansion, and it looks to be about a century older than it actually is. After all, how many office buildings are designed in Colonial Revival style, or have ancient cannon parked on the front lawn?
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Thomas Jefferson Building, 1220 Bank Street, is the former Thomas Hunter Blanton Office Building, now used by Commonwealth of Virginia government. Name: Thomas Jefferson Building Location: 1220 Bank Street Year Completed: 1956 Style: Modernism Google Map All images copyright © Kenneth Grant / photos taken October 2019 with Canon 5D Mark iv
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Black members of the multiracial First Baptist Church congregation purchased the existing (1802) church after white members built their own church on 12th Street, a block away. The black congregation added “African” to the church name. When the black congregation built a new church in 1876, it was patterned after the 12th Street church. Neither
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Hailed as a “significant new project” when built, Williams Mullen Center got faint praise from architecture critic Architecture Richmond: “The building’s exterior does not mar the cityscape, but it does fall somewhere short of beauty.” Maybe it’s a matter of taste. Personally, I like the way it plays visually with neighboring James Center and Gateway
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Continental Building seems best known for its next-door neighbors: the crinkled-aluminum Markel Building to the west and the Willow Lawn shopping center to the east. Yet, it’s a surprising (though modest) piece of architecture. The entire three-story building is raised on stilts a la Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye – providing shaded parking. The high arched
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