The first postwar high rise in Louisville was not modern. 

 

The Commonwealth Building was a late 1920s or early 1930s design, executed in the 1950s, right down to the rooftop beacon.  It was built on top of a four story base that had been completed just as the Depression hit.

 

 

Downtown Louisville had to wait to 1962 for its first truly modern high-rise.  This was Trinity Tower, a 17 story apartment building,

 

 

Trinity because it was built by Trinity Methodist Temple for retired Methodists.  It was a species of non-profit high rise housing for the elderly.  Louisville had three others of this type; Baptist Towers (built by the Southern Baptists), Hildebrandt House (built by the IAM, the machinist union), both in Old Louisville, and a suburban high rise at the Jewish Community Center for Jewish senior citizens.

 

 

 

 

The building was deliberately designed with somewhat blank east and west side walls to minimize solar gain, as can be seen from this view down Guthrie Street

 

 

Guthrie was a short east-west street, one that is occasionally seen downtown.  It was also the first experiment at pedestrianization.  The white building in the foreground is the Speed Building of 1913, one of the larger terra cotta installations downtown.

 

You might have noticed some stuff at the top.  This is the Chapel in the Sky, a rooftop Methodist church (since the residents were probably mostly Methodist), and a roof deck next to it.

 

 

Rooftop antennae are unintentionally cross-shaped.

 

The east side wall, being mostly blank, provides a good canvas for a local banner campaign celebrating local celebrities…in this case a certain old guy in a white suit.

 

 

Another view, along Third Street (the short side faces Third, long side facing Guthrie).  Behind Trinity Towers across Guthrie is the old Madrid Ballroom, which hosted things as diverse as swing bands, Duke Ellington, and bluegrass jamborees.

 

 

The amoeba shaped treatment on th near e storefront is for the UofK/UofL joint venture urban design/planning studio & exhibition space.  Be nice if we had something like that in Dayton.

 

@@@

 

Most of the tall (over 10 stories) buildings that went up downtown during the 1960s were for housing.  The year after this The 800 opened, just south of Broadway.  Then a bunch of high rise public housing things went up.  Probably the first modern office high rise to go up downtown was the Federal Building.  After that two private sector ventures in the east downtown urban renewal area; the Vermont-American offices and the “Tuning Fork Building” (more on that later).

 

The first 20 story office tower finally opened in 1971.

 

i like the chapel on top of that project building, thats gotta be unique.

Neat!

i like the chapel on top of that project building, thats gotta be unique.

 

Believe it or not there is another Methodist Church atop a high-rise...the Chicago Temple:

 

 

...the spire is considerably more dramatic, eh?  This was the First Methodist church, the oldest congregation in Chicago.  They still had their 1830s property in the heart of the Loop so built that big skyscraper on it and stuck the church on top.  This was the tallest building outside of NYC until the Terminal Tower was built (according to Wiki).