You are here
Portsmouth Public Library (U.S. Post Office)
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
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.