1.
Downtown Jacksonville
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Downtown Jacksonville is the historic core and central business district of Jacksonville, Florida USA. It comprises the earliest area of the city to be developed and is located in its center along the narrowing point of the St. Johns River. The area features offices for major corporations such as CSX Corporation, Fidelity National Financial, EverBank, Bank of America, Prudential Financial, Wells Fargo, AT&T, histories of the city report that there was once an Indian village at the site called Ossachite. White settlement in the area began during Floridas British period, when the East Florida government built the Kings Road to connect St. Augustine with the British colonies to the north. A ferry and tavern were built, and when Spanish rule resumed in Florida, the settlement that became Jacksonville largely formed from two land grants issued in 1816, one to Maria Taylor, née Suarez, and one to Juan LeMaestre. Hart eventually convinced his neighbors to join him in donating land for the venture, the settlement was named Jacksonville after Andrew Jackson, who had become popular among many Floridians for his actions in the First Seminole War. The town grew in fits and starts, it saw disruption during the Second Seminole War, during the American Civil War, Jacksonville was home to many Union sympathizers, and was occupied for most of the war by Union troops who took the city four separate times. The war devastated Jacksonville and caused half the population to flee. On May 3,1901, downtown Jacksonville was ravaged by a fire started at a fiber factory. Known as the Great Fire of 1901, it was one of the worst disasters in Florida history, in just eight hours, it destroyed the business district and left approximately 10,000 residents homeless. Architect Henry John Klutho was a figure in the reconstruction of the city. Multiple definitions of Downtown Jacksonville are in common use, often, the name Downtown is used exclusively for the historical core. This is bounded roughly by State Street to the north, Hogans Creek to the east, the St. Johns River to the south, and this definition is used, for example, by the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission and their book, Jacksonvilles Architectural Heritage. However, the City of Jacksonville and other use a wider definition that includes not only the Downtown Core. In this definition, the boundaries are State Street to the north, the St. Johns River to the east, under the broader definition, Downtown Jacksonville is divided into several districts or neighborhood. In addition to the historical Downtown Core, the most commonly used districts are, the Southbank, also known as the Northbank, is Jacksonvilles traditional city center and what most people associate with Downtown and Jacksonville in general. The Downtown Core is sometimes divided into additional, smaller districts. Downtown Vision, Inc. refers to the blocks to north of Church Street, the City of Jacksonvilles Downtown Master Plan further restricts the Central Civic Core to south of Church Street and east of Main Street, separating the rest of the area into other districts
2.
Jacksonville, Florida
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Jacksonville is a seaport city and the seat of Duval County, Florida, United States. With an estimated 868,031 residents as of 2015, Jacksonville is the most populous city in both the state of Florida and the southeastern United States. It is estimated to be the 12th most populous city in the United States and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Jacksonville metropolitan area has a population of 1,603,497 and is the 34th largest in the United States and fourth largest in the state of Florida. The city is situated on the banks of the St. Johns River, in the First Coast region of North Florida, prior to European settlement, the Jacksonville area was inhabited by Native American people known as the Timucua. In 1564, the French established the colony of Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River. In 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain, Jacksonville is the cultural, commercial and financial center of North Florida. A major military and civilian deep-water port, the citys riverine location supports two United States Navy bases and the Port of Jacksonville, Floridas third largest seaport. The two US Navy bases, Blount Island Command and the nearby Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Jacksonville is also home to several colleges and universities, including University of North Florida, Jacksonville University and Florida State College at Jacksonville. The area of the city of Jacksonville has been inhabited for thousands of years. In the 16th century, the beginning of the era, the region was inhabited by the Mocama. At the time of contact with Europeans, all Mocama villages in present-day Jacksonville were part of the powerful chiefdom known as the Saturiwa, centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River. One early map shows a village called Ossachite at the site of what is now downtown Jacksonville, French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault charted the St. Johns River in 1562 calling it the River of May because he discovered it in May. Ribault erected a column near present-day Jacksonville claiming the newly discovered land for France. In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière established the first European settlement, Fort Caroline, philip II of Spain ordered Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to protect the interest of Spain by attacking the French presence at Fort Caroline. On September 20,1565, a Spanish force from the nearby Spanish settlement of St. Augustine attacked Fort Caroline, the Spanish renamed the fort San Mateo, and following the ejection of the French, St. Augustines position as the most important settlement in Florida was solidified. The location of Fort Caroline is subject to debate but a reconstruction of the fort was established on the St. Johns River in 1964. Spain ceded Florida to the British in 1763 after the French and Indian War, the British introduced the cultivation of sugar cane, indigo and fruits as well the export of lumber
3.
Great Fire of 1901
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The Great Fire of 1901 was a conflagration that occurred in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 3,1901. It was one of the worst disasters in Florida history and the third largest urban fire in the US, next to the Great Chicago Fire, in 1901, Jacksonville was a city which consisted mainly of wooden buildings with wood shingled roofs. The city itself had been suffering under a drought, leaving the building exteriors across the city dry. At around noon on Friday, May 3,1901, workers at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, located on the corner of Beaver and Davis Streets, left for lunch. Several minutes later, sparks from the chimney of a nearby building started a fire in a pile of Spanish moss that had laid out to dry. First, factory workers tried to put it out with a few buckets of water, however, the blaze was soon out of control due to the wind picking up out of the east. A brisk northwest wind fanned the flames, which spread from house to house, in eight hours, the fire burned 146 city blocks, destroyed more than 2,368 buildings, and left almost 10,000 residents homeless. It is said the glow from the flames could be seen in Savannah, Georgia, Florida Governor William S. Jennings declared martial law in Jacksonville and dispatched several state militia units to help. Reconstruction began immediately, and the city was returned to authority on May 17. St. Andrews Episcopal Church, built of bricks in 1887, was the major church in the city to withstand the fire. The Duval County Courthouse and all its real estate records were destroyed in the fire and it is the only county in Florida for which that is the case. The only existing real estate records are title abstracts saved by Title and Trust. New York City architect Henry John Klutho helped rebuild the city, the Jacksonville City Hall currently uses the St. James Building. Local charity Fresh Ministries recently restored the Klutho Apartments, in Springfield, Jacksonville has one of the largest collections of Prairie Style buildings outside the Midwest. Information about the fire from the Jacksonville Historical Society 1901 Great Fire Remembered An Artistic Description of a Gloomy Affair
4.
Neoclassicism
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The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th, 20th, European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c.1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Baroque and Rococo styles. Each neo-classicism selects some models among the range of classics that are available to it. They ignored both Archaic Greek art and the works of Late Antiquity, the Rococo art of ancient Palmyra came as a revelation, through engravings in Woods The Ruins of Palmyra. While the movement is described as the opposed counterpart of Romanticism. The case of the main champion of late Neoclassicism, Ingres, demonstrates this especially well. The revival can be traced to the establishment of formal archaeology, the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann were important in shaping this movement in both architecture and the visual arts. With the advent of the Grand Tour, a fad of collecting antiquities began that laid the foundations of many great collections spreading a Neoclassical revival throughout Europe, Neoclassicism in each art implies a particular canon of a classical model. In English, the term Neoclassicism is used primarily of the arts, the similar movement in English literature. This, which had been dominant for decades, was beginning to decline by the time Neoclassicism in the visual arts became fashionable. Though terms differ, the situation in French literature was similar, in music, the period saw the rise of classical music, and Neoclassicism is used of 20th-century developments. Ingress coronation portrait of Napoleon even borrowed from Late Antique consular diptychs and their Carolingian revival, much Neoclassical painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the merits of Greek and Roman art, with Winckelmann. The work of artists, who could not easily be described as insipid, combined aspects of Romanticism with a generally Neoclassical style. Unlike Carstens unrealized schemes, the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi were numerous and profitable and his main subject matter was the buildings and ruins of Rome, and he was more stimulated by the ancient than the modern. Neoclassicism in painting gained a new sense of direction with the success of Jacques-Louis Davids Oath of the Horatii at the Paris Salon of 1785. Despite its evocation of republican virtues, this was a commission by the royal government, David managed to combine an idealist style with drama and forcefulness. David rapidly became the leader of French art, and after the French Revolution became a politician with control of government patronage in art
5.
Florida National Bank
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Florida National Bank, founded in 1905, was the second largest commercial bank in Florida. Florida National Group was acquired in 1990 by First Union Corporation, samuel Hubbards Mercantile Exchange Bank eventually became Florida National Bank after Jacksonvilles Great Fire of 1901. Millionaire Alfred I. du Pont acquired a major interest in the FNB shortly after moving to Jacksonville in the mid-1920s, the FNB stayed solvent throughout the 1930s because du Pont put $15 million of his own money into the institution to cover Bank runs. During the early 1930s, six other Florida National Banks were opened throughout Florida, including Lakeland and Bartow, Alfreds wife, when Alfred du Pont died in 1935, the du Pont Trust, managed by Ed Ball, Jessie du Ponts brother, continued to control the bank. Growth continued with the acquisition of many more Florida banks over the two decades and became known as the Florida National Group, which was one of the strongest banks in the state. In size, the branches eventually numbered 185, second only in Florida to Barnett Bank, Ball built the Florida National Bank building at 214 North Hogan Street in Jacksonville in 1961. The structure was constructed using materials which would appreciate in value, such as floors and granite exteriors. There were no executive washrooms and no hot water faucets in the eleven story edifice. The corporate offices of the group were housed in the upper floors, Ed Ball also kept his personal office there for managing the du Pont Trust. After Balls death, the structure was renamed the Edward Ball Building, congress forced the du Pont Trust to divest itself of banking interests when they withdrew the trusts 15-year exemption from the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. The trust sold 34. 7% ownership in Florida National Banks to Charter Company in 1971 for $42M, leaving the du Pont Trust with 24. 9%, the CEO of Charter was Raymond Mason, a protégé of Ed Ball. Additionally, Ed Ball personally owned 6. 4% of FNB and was executor of his sisters estate, Ball was forced to sell the trusts remaining shares and resign as chairman of FNB. However, the du Pont Trust owned a significant block of Charter stock, southeast Banking Corporation, Floridas largest bank holding company, targeted FNB with a takeover bid in 1980, which the FNB board rejected. That same year, a group of investors from Chile, Venezuela, Canada and south Florida sought 40% ownership. FNB filed suit in court and the group was enjoined from acquiring more than 25% of the bank holding companys outstanding shares. However, Florida National revealed in 1981 that it was willing to permit acquisition by Chemical Banking Corporation of New York City after laws preventing interstate banking were lifted. Cavendes Sociedad Financiera, a Venezuelan investment company, announced that it had acquired 24.99 percent of the stock of Florida National. In February,1982, SBC sued to obtain an injunction against the merger in Federal court, Florida National Bank countered with an antitrust suit against SBC
6.
Henry John Klutho
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Henry John Klutho was an American architect known for his work in the Prairie School style. He helped in the reconstruction of Jacksonville, Florida after the Great Fire of 1901—the largest-ever urban fire in the Southeast—by designing many of the new buildings built after the disaster and this period lasted until the beginning of World War I. Several Jacksonville architects began their careers in the offices of Kluthos firm, Klutho was born in Breese, Illinois, a small midwest town. He lived there until the age of 16, when he left for St. Louis, when he became interested in architecture, he moved to New York City to learn more, and became an architect. Klutho read about the Great Fire of 1901 in the New York Times and he finished his current projects in New York and quickly moved to Jacksonville. Other projects soon followed, including the new City Hall and private homes, during a business trip to New York City in 1905, Klutho met Frank Lloyd Wright, and the event changed Kluthos life. The new style appealed to Klutho, whose style changed to adopt the fresh ideas, in what is now the Springfield Historic District, he drew plans for the Klutho Apartments, the Claude Nolan Cadillac Building, the Florence Court Apartments and his own home. He also was involved in the design of buildings in the Avondale, in March,1910, Klutho agreed to design a building for Jacob and Morris Cohens department store, to be named the St. James Building. Among the proposals sent to the Cohens was a design for a building with four floors. Klutho proposed a mixed use design that would contain small shops on the first floor exterior with the department store in the interior, the third and fourth floors would contain offices for rent. He convinced the brothers that their structure would become the center of commerce for Jacksonville, Klutho not only designed the building, but acted as construction manager using the fast-track method, whereby work begins prior to design completion. Remarkably, the project was finished in less than a year, the structure was named the St. James Building, and it was Kluthos crowning achievement. When dedicated on October 21,1912, it was the largest structure in Jacksonville, the St. James Building was the featured article in The Western Architect and Kluthos work was highlighted throughout the magazine in June,1914. The most striking feature was a 75 octagonal glass dome. The elevators were open cages, giving passengers a view of the store, the building exterior was decorated with large abstract terra-cotta ornaments. Later generations in Jacksonville did not appreciate the creativity and style of his designs and his contributions to the rebirth of the city were mostly ignored, except by his colleagues. On this, he quoted Desiderius Erasmus, In the land of the blind, Klutho lived to be 91, but had little money, making his later years difficult. Following his death, much of his work was razed or renovated, James Building Thomas V. Porter House Alexander St. Presented by the State Archives of Florida
7.
Chicago school (architecture)
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Chicagos architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. The style is known as Commercial style. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, a Second Chicago School later emerged in the 1940s and 1970s which pioneered new building technologies and structural systems such as the tube-frame structure. Contemporary publications used the phrase Commercial Style to describe the innovative tall buildings of the era rather than proposing any sort of unified school, sometimes elements of neoclassical architecture are used in Chicago School skyscrapers. Many Chicago School skyscrapers contain the three parts of a classical column, the Chicago window originated in this school. It is a window consisting of a large fixed center panel flanked by two smaller double-hung sash windows. The arrangement of windows on the facade typically creates a grid pattern, the Chicago window combined the functions of light-gathering and natural ventilation, a single central pane was usually fixed, while the two surrounding panes were operable. These windows were often deployed in bays, known as oriel windows, frank Lloyd Wright started in the firm of Adler and Sullivan but created his own Prairie Style of architecture. The Home Insurance Building, which some regarded as the first skyscraper in the world, was built in Chicago in 1885 and was demolished in 1931 and its first and purest expression was the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments and their technological achievements. This was supported and enlarged in the 1960s due to the ideas of structural engineer Fazlur Khan and he introduced a new structural system of framed tubes in skyscraper design and construction. Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube, horizontal loads, for example wind, are supported by the structure as a whole. About half the surface is available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more floor space. Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the frame must be interrupted. The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building which Khan designed and was completed in Chicago by 1963. Today, there are different styles of architecture all throughout the city, such as the Chicago School, neo-classical, art deco, modern, architecture of Chicago Chicago Landmarks Early Commercial architecture Chicago Seven Palazzo style architecture Condit, Carl W. The Chicago school of architecture, a history of commercial and public building in the Chicago area, 1875-1925
8.
Prairie School
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Prairie School was a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the prairie landscape. The Prairie School developed in sympathy with the ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement begun in the late 19th century in England by John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. Many talented and ambitious young architects had been attracted by building opportunities stemming from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 was supposed to be a heralding of the city of Chicagos rebirth. But many of the young Mid-western architects of what would become the Prairie School were offended by the Greek, in reaction, they sought to create new work in and around Chicago that would display a uniquely modern and authentically American style, which came to be called Prairie. The designation Prairie is due to the dominant horizontality of the majority of Prairie style buildings which echoes the wide, flat, treeless expanses of the mid-Western United States. The Prairie School is mostly associated with a generation of architects employed or influenced by Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright, although the Prairie School originated in Chicago, some Prairie School architects moved away spreading the influence well beyond the Midwest. A partial list of Prairie School architects includes, The Prairie School houses were related to the American Arts and Crafts movement, an alternative to the then-dominant Classical Revival Style. Some firms, like Purcell & Elmslie, however, consciously rejected the term Arts and Crafts for their work, the Prairie School was also heavily influenced by the Idealistic Romantics and the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In turn, the Prairie School architects influenced subsequent architectural idioms, particularly the Minimalists and Bauhaus, architectural historians have debated the reasons why the Prairie School went out of favor by the mid-1920s. Perhaps a serious consideration of one of its own members would be worth their serious attention. Mahonys and Griffins work in Australia and India, notably the collection of homes at Castlecrag, isabel Roberts Veterans Memorial Library in St. Cloud, Florida, is another. The House at 8 Berkley Drive at Lockport, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, the Oak Circle Historic District is a historic district in Wilmette, Illinois, United States. It primarily consists of fifteen single-family homes representative of the Prairie School, the Oak Circle Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 21,2001, it was the first historic district to be designated in Wilmette. Several not-for-profit organizations and on-line communities have formed to educate people about the Prairie School movement
9.
121 Atlantic Place
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121 Atlantic Place, formerly the Atlantic National Bank Building, is a historic skyscraper in Jacksonville, Florida. It was built in 1909 as the headquarters for the Atlantic National Bank and it was the tallest building in Jacksonville and in Florida from 1909 to 1912, and remains an office building today. The building was designed by New York City architects Mowbray and Uffinger, the steel frame structure stands at 10 stories and 135 feet high, and includes a white Sylacauga marble covering on the bottom two floors and white terra cotta on the upper eight. The facade includes ornate detailing, two-story columns around the entrance, the building was constructed amid a three-way race with the Bisbee Building and the Seminole Hotel to become Jacksonvilles first skyscraper. All three buildings were located on Forsyth Street within a block of each other, and all three were ten stories tall, the Atlantic National Bank Building broke ground in August 1908, shortly after the Bisbee Building but before the Seminole Hotel. The Bisbee opened just before the Atlantic National Bank Building the following year, however, at 41 meters the Atlantic Bank Building was taller than the others, making it the tallest building in Jacksonville and the tallest in Florida at the time. It held that position until the Florida Life Building was completed in 1912. The Atlantic National Bank, founded by Edward W. Lane, Thomas P. Denham, in 1926 the bank opened the Atlantic National Bank Annex directly behind the Bank Building on West Adams Street. This building, now known as the Schultz Building, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, in 1985 Atlantic National Bank merged with First Union, which was in turn acquired by Wachovia. The Atlantic National Bank Building changed hands over the years, becoming known as 121 Atlantic Place and it was renovated in the 2000s, with a five-story addition added to the west. One unique feature of the structure is its pedestrian tunnel connecting to the BB&T Bank Building and this tunnel, originally created to facilitate secure travel between buildings, has been home to a small restaurant, Bennys, since 1985
