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Portsmouth Public Library (U.S. Post Office)

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U.S. Post Office
1907–1909, James K. Taylor, Supervising Architect, U.S. Treasury Department. 1931, annex, James Alphonso Wetmore, Supervising Architect, U.S. Treasury Department. 1963–1964, renovation, Yates and Boggs. 601 Court St.
  • Portsmouth Public Library (U.S. Post Office) (Richard Guy Wilson)

Taylor transformed the architectural idiom of the U.S. Treasury Department from Victorian to classical, as exemplified in this very French Beaux-Arts building, originally the city's main post office. The brick and limestone exterior has a hexastyle, Scamozzian Ionic entrance portico on the west facade. A 1931 annex continued the Beaux-Arts idiom eastward. The post office vacated the building in 1961 and the city acquired it for use as a public library shortly thereafter.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Portsmouth Public Library (U.S. Post Office)", [Portsmouth, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-PO8.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 445-445.

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