Long Description:
From the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri
website:
On February 9, 1923, the residents of the City of St. Louis
voted a bond issue in the amount of $87 million for extensive city
improvements, including the construction of the Civil Courts
Building. The cornerstone of the new courthouse was laid February
3, 1928, and the building was dedicated and occupied on June 21,
1930. (Cost - $4,520,000). The architectural staff of the City of
St. Louis Plaza Commission designed it.
Rising 255 feet above ground level, the building assumes the
noble design of a Greek temple, a replica of the tomb of Mausolus
at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A
massive colonnade of 32 Ionic columns surrounds the building, eight
on each side. Each column, which is made up of a base, 6 fluted
drums, and a cap, is about 42 feet high, 5 1/2 feet in diameter,
and weighs about 65 tons.
The material in the columns, as well as the facing for the
exterior of the entire building, comprise more than 15,000 pieces
of limestone, quarried and milled at Bedford, Indiana. An eagle is
perched at each of the four corners of the building above the
colonnade. A frieze of griffins encircles the building below the
colonnade.
The
pyramidal-shaped roof of the building is made of cast
aluminum. At the summit, there are two Greek sphinx-like
figures, one facing east, and the other facing west. Each has
the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the face of a
woman, with the fleur-de-lis of St. Louis adorned on the
chest. Each measures 20 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet
tall. They too are made of aluminum which, together with the
aluminum of the pyramidal roof, were connected with the steel
framework of the building, serving as a lightning conductor.
The two sphinx-like forms, towering 380 feet above the
sidewalk, are hollow, the interior of each resembling a room
of ordinary size, to which access is gained through an opening
at the base.
Except for some of the ornamentation, the design of the Civil
Courts Building carefully follows the original design of the
ancient tomb; however, at the top, the sphinx-like figures were
substituted for the sculpture of a 4-horse chariot driven by
Mausolus and Artemisia.
