BENJAMIN LEVI ROSS 64 ARRIS I VO LUM E TWEN TY 2009 Figure 1 Charles B. Cla rke, Fagin Bui lding, St Louis, Missouri, 1888, destroyed ca 1896 (Frank Leslie's illustrated Newspaper, February 8, 1890) Figure 2 Aaron W Fagin. (St Louis Post-Dispatch, 1896) BENJAMIN LEVI ROSS CHARLES B. CLARKE'S FAGIN BUILDING: ABERRATION OR INNOVATION? BENJAMIN LEVI ROSS T he Fagin Building of 1888, built in St. Louis and designed by local architect Charles B. Clarke, was a unique product of the struggle to develop a suitable architectural expression for the tall office building (Figure 1). Long overlooked by architectural historians , the Fagin Building represented a critical period in the development of this building type and should be recognized as a key transitional work in the evolution of the skyscraper. The Fagin Building foreshadowed future \vorks vvith its immense expanses of glass, dizzying cantilevers , and abandonment of conventional ornament, while also embodying the picturesque aesthetic of its own era through a heavily articulated skyline and extensive use of decorative glass. This bold structure suffered the misfortune of being completed just as the nation's tastes in architecture began to shift toward the reserved formality of Beaux-Arts classicism. Soundly condemned by the architectural press in its own day, Charles B. Clarke's design was destroyed only eight years after its construction. In subsequent decades, the building was occasionally cited by historians of ~1odern architecture, who saw it worthy of only passing mention as a sort of a curio of tasteless eclectic Victorian excess from the period before the rise of Beaux-Arts classicism. Clarke's design was slowly forgotten, surfacing rarely and only then as a curiosity, an aberration , an example of confusion and incoherence . A more rigorous examination of the Fagin Building, however, suggests that it was a significant tran- )~ sitional work in the struggle ~ to define the architecture of the tall office building-a work worthy of recognition -drawing from its own era in some respects while seeking a bold new expression in others. THE CLIENT The Fagin Building was commissioned by Aaron \~V Fagin (1812-1896), a flamboyant capitalist millionaire who had come to St. Louis from Ohio in 1842 (Figure 2). Fagin amassed a substantial fortune through a commission business, the U.S. Flouring Mills (of which he became sole owner in 1851), and later through investments VO LUME TWENTY 2009 I ARRIS 65 BENJAM IN LEVI ROSS 66 ARRIS I VOL UME TWE N I y 2009 Figure 3 Charles B. Clarke, jonathan Pierce House, St Louis, Missouri, ca 1868, destroyed 1896 (John Albury Brya n, Missouri's Contribution to American Architecture, 1928) in grain elevators, meat-packing interests, and lead mines. He served as vice president of the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, helping to reconcile the organization's northern and southern factions after the conclusion of the Civil \Var. 1 As a representative of this group, he participated in a series of conventions on the improvement of the rapids of the Nlississippi River during 1866 to 1867. The proceedings of one such convention note that Fagin "had been engaged in business for a long time, and had passed from wagons to railroads and telegraphs."2 In light of this rapid technological advancement in his ovvn lifetime, he asked the delegates: "why should we not advance to improvements in navigation?"3 One might infer from these comments that Fagin subscribed to the great technological optimism of his day, living in a society inundated with a constant stream of inventions and improvements that seemed to promise a future of innovation and progress. In 1830, Fagin had married Sallie Bradbury (18101869 ), and the couple had six daughters, the oldest of·whom, Rebecca (1832-1922), married Nathan Cole (1825-1904), later Mayor of St. Louis. After Sallie's death in 1869, Fagin busied himself with building an Italianate villa near Hyde Park in St. Louis. In 1872, he embarked on a world tour with a huge personal caravan in tow. Accounts of the trip indicate that it lasted for five to eight years, covering Europe, the Nliddle East, and the Orient. In 1881, Fagin married a Swiss woman named Anna l\!Ianhard and the...