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Vermont » Franklin County » City of St. Albans » St. Albans City Hall

St. Albans City Hall

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1897, Arthur H. Smith. 100 N. Main St., City of St. Albans
  • (Alan P. Lampson)

The Romanesque Revival popularized by H. H. Richardson was still evident some eleven years after his death in a burst of civic architecture in St. Albans. While rebuilding after the fire of 1895, the community also needed new public construction, especially since it received a city charter in 1896. Over the next five years, St. Albans built a city hall, a county jail, twin elementary schools (FR28), and a library, all in a similar style. Rutland architect Smith designed the most monumental of these—the city hall. The brick building sits upon a granite basement that rises in a rock-faced Syrian arch set in a deep, buttressed porch framing the shadowy entrance. A polygonal two-story bay and a three-story tower with louvered belfry and corbeled polygonal cap picturesquely frame the inset central zone. The building extends at the rear with a lower assembly hall intended as a public meeting place and home to the local company of the Vermont National Guard prior to the construction of an armory in 1915. Subsequently flanked by three-story commercial blocks, the municipal building asserts its special status with a setback from the building line, its powerful entrance, and the animation of its massing.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson
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Data

What's Nearby

State Office Building and District Court (U.S. Custom House and Post Office)
Bailey Block
First Congregational Church
Franklin County Courthouse
St. Luke's Episcopal Church

Citation

Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson, "St. Albans City Hall", [St. Albans, Vermont], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-FR38.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Vermont

Buildings of Vermont, Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 213-214.

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