You are here

United States Post Office Building (now Decorah Public Library)

-A A +A
now Decorah Public Library
1910, James Knox Taylor. Southeast corner of Main and Winnebago streets

A Tuscan temple front with four columns opens to the north on Main Street, and a bank of high arched windows and a central door faces east on Winnebago Street. Both entrances have been left intact with their stairs, platform, and accompanying cast-iron light standards in place. The stone surface of the building has been kept smooth, and the openings are articulated by a thin, cut-in line designating the frame. The Decorah Post Office illustrates how many individual designs John Knox Taylor and his staff were able to devise within the Beaux-Arts Classical tradition. The recycling of the building into a library is a successful example of adaptive reuse.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim
×

Data

What's Nearby

Citation

David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim, "United States Post Office Building (now Decorah Public Library)", [Decorah, Iowa], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/IA-01-NO093.

Print Source

Buildings of Iowa, David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 375-377.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,