City Auditorium, Clay Ward Market
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Virginia Commonwealth University Gymnasium (City Auditorium, Clay Ward Market)
1891, Wilfred Emory Cutshaw, city engineer. 1906, auditorium renovation, Noland and Baskervill. Later additions and renovations. W. Cary St. at Linden St.
This large building was constructed as a public market for the rapidly developing west end of Richmond but never succeeded economically. Subsequently it served as the city auditorium and as a warehouse. It currently functions as a gymnasium. The building is a remarkably wellpreserved example of a late nineteenth-century public works project. Its most significant features are the detailed brickwork and the metal truss roof with clerestory windows, which apparently were inspired by the Pension Building in Washington, D.C. (1881–1887), designed and built under the direction of engineer Montgomery C. Meigs.
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