We’ll look at three important buildings in downtown St. Joseph; the first up is the Corby-Forsee Building, designed by the St. Louis architecture firm of Eames and Young, opening in 1910. Due to its importance, there was also a one story mercantile grain exchange room added later. It even sort of looks like a skyscraper you’d see in St. Louis. It is obviously held up by an internal steel skeleton structure.
Next up is the German American Bank, which is pretty self explanatory. It’s such a great example, unlike the previous post-Sullivan skyscraper, of a tall building still wedded to the Romanesque Revival and huge, hulking curtain walls and you can see below.
The final building below, the American Electric Company Building, is a great example of a transitional structure between the Romanesque Revival and taller, steel supported construction. The massive granite column at the corner of the building is perhaps the best detail of the whole composition.
