Mackay Building - Parkville, Missouri
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 39° 11.382 W 094° 40.816
15S E 354887 N 4339172
Historic college administrative and classroom building at Park University in Parkville, Missouri.
Waymark Code: WMB7E4
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 04/14/2011
Views: 7
"Mackay Hall faces south from a prominent site on a high hill overlooking the Missouri River. It is a massively proportioned rock-faced limestone structure, dominated by a tall spire rising in stages from a semi-detached central block. Surrounding the tower are the building's projecting or receding bays, and smaller lateral towers set partially into the east and west facades. Mackay Hall is three stories in height, resting on a full basement and capped by a complex slate roof, which is interrupted by wall dormers and defined by a heavy, bracketed cornice. While the building is given horizontal emphasis with bands of belt courses, a contrasting verticality is established with multiple towers and narrow groupings of tall, slender windows into projecting or receding bays. Although Mackay tends to elude stylistic designation, its massiveness, rough textured wall surfaces, complex roofs and towers, wall dormers, asymmetrical fays and polychromatic color scheme are all features found in such popular architectural styles of th.e day-as Richardsonian Romanesque, High Victorian Gothic and Chateauesque. By contrast, the predominant -window type, a- tall, slender 4-over-4 double'-hung window capped by a segmental arch, lacks the historic accuracy needed for the preceding styles and thus contributes a vernacular flavor to Mackay Hall.
Mackay Hall of Park College in Parkville, Missouri, is significant as an example of late nineteenth century Eclectic architecture, as a product of student workmanship, and as a reflection of the college's history and unique "self-help" educational philosophy." - National Register Nomination form