The 10 best works of public architecture in St. Louis

St. Louis architecture has a style all its own. You can look at many St. Louis houses and instantly know that they are from here.

The deep red brick, sometimes accented with white glazed brick. The arches around the windows or doors. The long, narrow layouts — these are all indications that a house was built right here in River City.

But what about public architecture? What about structures that are meant to be seen and admired and enjoyed as a work of art?

We are awash in those, too. The St. Louis region is positively stuffed with top-level architecture.

We have so many stellar examples, it was hard to narrow down a list to just the top 10. But we were up to the challenge.

Here are 10 public structures that we find to be the best of the best.

The Gateway Arch

Perhaps you've seen it?

It stands 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide, designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1965. That makes this year the arch's 60th anniversary and, remarkably, it is just as stunning, graceful and impressive as it ever was.

Technically, it is in the form of a flattened catenary arch, which means it is the shape that a chain forms when it is held between your hands, only turned upside down and then squished down a little bit at the top so it isn't quite as pointy as a true catenary arch.

It's the tallest monument in the United States, fitted with perhaps the most quaintly claustrophobic trams. But that's only part of the charm.

Though it may technically be a symbol of early America's drive toward the west, we all secretly know it is the perfect symbol for St. Louis.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation

The first public building in the United States by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, this art museum is a harmonious space of light, balance and serenity.

Yet, paradoxically, it is made of concrete.

Ando "elevated this material to an art," says architect John Guenther, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.

"It looks like manmade marble when it shines in the sunlight. It has a sense of wonder and mystery," he says.

Guenther points to the way the rooms guide visitors through a circuitous route through the galleries. Sunlight bounces off a central reflecting pool outside, and the precisely placed windows allow for its reflection inside the rooms.

It is a place of reverence and understated beauty. The building itself makes you want to talk quietly, or not at all, when you're there.

Union Station

During World War II and after, when soldiers were returning home, Union Station hosted more than 100,000 people per day, making it the busiest train station in America.

What those travelers saw was a spectacular example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture — you'll have to trust us on that — that was as functional (with 32 boarding gates) as it was beautiful.

The elaborate lobby gets most of the attention, and deservedly so.

"That big barrel vault is just so magnificent," Guenther says. "The stencil work and the patterns are gorgeous. I would say it is one of the most elegant rooms in all of America — the proportions, the way the space is formed."

Wainwright Building

Built in 1891 and standing 10 stories high, the Wainwright Building is not, as some have called it, the world's first skyscraper.

But it was the first tall building to visually emphasize its height, says Patrick F. Cannon, author of "Louis Sullivan: An American Architect."

Before the Wainwright Building, tall buildings looked like three shorter buildings stacked on top of one another, Cannon says. But the famed Sullivan designed the Wainwright building to feature continuous columns of brick for seven stories. That section was sandwiched between a base of two stories on the bottom and a highly ornamental cornice around the top floor.

Because building owner Ellis Wainwright was a brewer, Sullivan included representations of hops plants in the decorations.

The building's design was so successful that uninterrupted columns between windows became the standard for skyscrapers.

The Abbey Church at St. Louis Priory School

The Abbey Church, one of the signature achievements of St. Louisan Gyo Obata, was revolutionary when it was first constructed in 1962. And it is still a standout work of both modernity and religious wonder today.

The building was finished at a time when priests did not face the worshippers. But this building is in the round, with the altar in the middle. The priest cannot help but face some of the pews, which are daringly (for the time) close to the altar.

Even more radical is the structure itself. It is two rows of concrete arches, one on top of the other, with panels of sheer fiberglass between them to bring in loads of light. The result is unified, uncluttered and serene, Guenther says.

"It achieves this wonderful balance and synergy between monasticism and modernity. It's quite moving," he says.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

In contrast to the modernity of the Abbey Church stands the solid tradition of the Cathedral Basilica, built from 1907 to 1914 in a combination of Romanesque Revival and Neo-Byzantine styles that somehow work together.

Though the building itself is notable — Guenther says that unlike Gothic churches, which lift you up to God, Byzantine churches bring God down to earth — the most jaw-dropping aspect is the mosaics that cover the ceiling.

Around 41.5 million pieces of colored glass, many of them containing gold leaf, were used to cover every inch of the 83,000 square-foot ceiling. Artisans used more than 7,000 colors to illustrate stories from the Bible, the life of St. Louis and moments from the archdiocese's history.

The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park

"If I want someone to understand (Frank Lloyd) Wright, I will send them to the Kraus House," says architect John Waters, the Preservations Programs Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

The Wright building in Ebsworth Park in Kirkwood is often called the Kraus House, after its first occupants.

The home is a brilliant example of what Wright called Usonian houses. These houses were often intended for the middle class, built on a modest scale. But they share design elements that make them unquestionably Wright's.

For each one, Wright used a single geometric shape as the constant theme throughout the design (the Kraus House uses a rhombus). They have a concrete slab floor with radiant heat in it, brick exterior walls and interior walls made from horizontal slats of wood separated by thin battens, Waters says.

It also has a carport, which are common in Usonian houses. The term "carport" was coined by Wright himself.

St. Louis Library Central Branch

It's so much more than just a place to get books.

The downtown library was built with money donated by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and designed by Cass Gilbert, whose other prominent buildings include the Minnesota State Capitol, the Woolworth Building in New York and the U.S. Supreme Court.

He also designed what is now the St. Louis Art Museum for the 1904 World's Fair.

The three-story library building is in the Beaux-Arts style, which combined elements of ancient Roman and Greek architecture with stylistic embellishments of the Renaissance (the library resembles an Italian palazzo) and flourishes of the Baroque. 

It is centered around a Great Hall, highlighted by dramatic cascades of staircases.

General American Life Insurance Company

Famed architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee created a classic and timeless modern building when they designed this 1977 structure that is now home to Spire headquarters.

It's in the form of a rectangle, but the rectangle has been cut into two triangles, and the one that faces Market Street is raised three floors above the other. In the center is a large cylinder that rises through the building.

"It's a simple structure, but very bold according to its geometry," Guenther says.

Climatron

Guenther calls the Climatron geodesic dome at the Missouri Botanical Garden the best example of the principles of Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was the father of the geodesic dome, and the Climatron was also Fuller's own favorite version.

Fuller wanted structures that did the most with the least. Geodesic domes such as the Climatron are lightweight but strong, held up by a hexagonal grid of aluminum tubes.

It is an unbeatable structure for what is essentially an enormous greenhouse.

Fun fact: The Climatron originally used lightweight plexiglass panels for its skin, but a 1988-90 renovation replaced them with insulated glass. The glass would be too heavy for the aluminum exoskeleton, so a glass dome was constructed just inside the original aluminum framework.

In other words, it isn't a true geodesic dome, anymore.