First Pasadena State Bank Building
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Pasadena Southmore Building (First Pasadena State Bank Building)
1962, MacKie and Kamrath, Lloyd Borget, and Doughtie and Porterfield. 1001 E. Southmore Ave.
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(Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )
At twelve stories, the former bank building was meant to mark the new c. 1960 center of Pasadena, ten blocks south of the previous downtown. MacKie and Kamrath designed the office tower with small floor plates that project forward from a brick-faced elevator and stair core, giving the building its strong frontal profile. The banking hall is wrapped around the rear of the tower in an expansive semicircle, framed by live oak trees. With its oversailing cornices and stepped wall planes, this miniature skyscraper demonstrates how effective Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian modernism could be in claiming a sense of place in a suburbanized setting. After over a decade of bank failures, rotating owners, vacancy, and increasing deterioration, PSB was imploded on July 21, 2019.
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