Springfield City Hall - Springfield, Missouri - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

The United States Customhouse and Post Office, now the City Hall, in Springfield, Missouri is a three story building with basement and attic which is L, shaped in plan and constructed of limestone blocks. It is a substantial example of the Romanesque Revival style of design in its variation known as Richardsonian Romanesque after its major proponent in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Henry Hobson Richardson. It is constructed In four sections - the main wing to the south with its turret and campanile-like tower, the central portion, the original northernmost section, and today's northernmost section which forms the L of the plan and is the result of an addition to the building in 1910-1914.

Exterior.
The primary facade of the building faces south. Here, the main entrance is recessed beneath a heavy, broad arch of smoothed limestone voussoirs supported by receding smoothed limestone jamb columns with ornate, foliate basket capitals. This arched entryway projects from the facade and is edged with smoothed limestone quoin headers, as are most of the other such projections on the building's exterior. The projecting pavilion is capped by a balustrade of urn balusters and is ornamented with foliate gargoyle-like waterspouts at the corners. Below, the spandrel panels of the entry arch are decorated with foliated ornament and feature flcreated, wheel-like paterae in their corners.

Flanking the entrance pavilion at the first floor level are paired one-over-one light, double-hung sash with molded and smoothed limestone jambs which imitate in two dimensions the shape of a column topped by a basket capital. All of these windows have closed tympanae. That of the westernmost window is embellished with a panel of intricately carved, foliated rinceaux which twine around a central floral motif. Above each of these window pairs rests a decorative panel, intricately carved with a guilloche pattern which has been augmented with floral and foliate details.

Resting atop this is a denticulated molding and a second tier of windows. These are capped by round arches of smoothed voussoirs and molded driptsones with foliate terminals, and are flanked by molded, impost level stringcourses. Again, the westernmost window has its tympanum closed with an intricately carved panel of foliate details arranged this time in a fleur-de-lis pattern.