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Northeast Expressway Branch, Trust Company of Georgia

Northeast Expressway Branch, Trust Company of Georgia
Threatened
  • Modern Movement
  • Identity of Building/Site
  • History of Building/Site
  • General Description
  • Evaluation
  • Documentation

Northeast Expressway Branch, Trust Company of Georgia

Site overview

When the Trust Company of Georgia began planning for a new bank branch in the early 1960s, expression of modern ideals in bank architecture was reaching its peak. The selected site for the new branch building was a perfect expression of the needs of the modern banking customer: easily accessible, and highly visible, to commuters on the busy Northeast Expressway. For the design of the new building, the Trust Company hired Abreu & Robeson, with Henri Jova as lead architect. “Because of the site,” explains David Reinhart, “it was hard to figure out which way to orient the building. [Jova] decided a round building would be a solution. A round building would relate itself to the entire intersection of the Interstate and Monroe Drive.” The 56-foot diameter upper level of the exterior is clad in vertically laid white bricks and sits upon a 40-foot diameter base of dark glazed brick. The reinforced-concrete roof is an undulation of scalloped overhangs centering on a domed skylight. Tall, narrow windows bracket each bay of the 10-bay building. The 56-foot diameter upper level of the exterior is clad in vertically laid white bricks and sits upon a 40-foot diameter base of dark glazed brick. The reinforced-concrete roof is an undulation of scalloped overhangs centering on a domed skylight. Tall, narrow windows bracket each bay of the 10-bay building. (Adapted from DOCOMOMO Georgia Chapter Blog)

Primary classification

Commercial (COM)

Terms of protection

Owned by Jeff Notrica, Inman Park Properties, Atlanta, Georgia.

Designations

Local landmark status pending (October 2016)

Author(s)

Jon Buono | | 2006

How to Visit

Open to the public as the Cirque Daiquiri Bar & Grill

Location

2160 Monroe Drive, NE
Atlanta, GA, 30324-4833

Country

US
More visitation information

Case Study House No. 21

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Designer(s)

Henri Jova

Other designers

Abreu and Robeson with Henri Jova, Associate ArchitectJova began his architectural education in the late 1930s at Cornell University’s Architecture Department, which at the time provided a course of study rooted in the Beaux Arts tradition. Jova suspended his education for three years of military service during WWII, and by the time of his return to Cornell, the pedagogy had shifted to favor Bauhaus teaching methods. After graduation from Cornell, Jova received the Rome Prize, and then a Fulbright Fellowship, which fostered his architectural education abroad. Upon his return to the United States, he took his first job with the firm Harrison Abramowitz in New York City. In 1954, following two years in New York, Jova came to Atlanta and joined the Atlanta office of his cousin Francis Abreu, who shared a practice with James Robeson. In 1966, Jova formed his own practice in Atlanta, with Stanley Daniels and John Busby.

Related chapter

Georgia

Commission

1964

Completion

1965

Commission / Completion details

1964/1965

Current Use

Restaurant

Current Condition

Good

General Description

The bank complex is comprised of a main circular banking hall with three adjacent, smaller oval structures for use as drive-through teller windows. The small structures are connected to the circular hall via a tiered concrete canopy. The banking hall itself is cantilevered over a narrower base. The drum-like hall is defined by eight sections, separated by double narrow windows, which emphasize the verticality of the building. The structure’s thin-shell concrete roof is the form of a parabaloid hyperboloid groin vault type.The form of the structure is cast-in place concrete, while the walls are clad in glazed brick. Although architectural concrete was initially specified in the design, following the client’s request, brick was used. To maintain the vertical emphasis of the banking hall, the white brick was set in soldier course. The base however was clad in running bond in dark grey.Working in collaboration with Virginia Bowen of Ivan Allen, the building interior was conceived to complement the cyllindrical space. The plan was left open except for the vault which was enclosed in a circular wall, a conference area which was defined by an oval rosewood wall, and the curvilinear cashiers' counter. A simple furniture scheme was created to emphasis the interaction between customers and bank personnel.The building's lower level contained an employee's lounge, storage, and tunnel access to the drive-in teller stations.Sited on a sloping lot, the bank was accessed via a concrete bridge to the upper parking lot, while the teller stations were placed on the descending slope.The bank’s sign was a three-pronged, wishbone-shaped concrete structure that supported three eliptical sign panels, that was visible in from all approaches.

Construction Period

The building is of cast-in-place reinforced concrete with a four-inch radial-vaulted roof culminating in a central skylight. The roof ribs fan out to space the arch-topped wall bays, which are bordered by narrow floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, the white, vertically laid bricks emphasize the 56-foot-diameter upper level, over the recessed 40-foot-diameter lower level in dark glazed brick.

Original Physical Context

The building was originally sited along US Interstate 85. Following an interstate expansion in the 1980s, the original four-lane roadway (also known as the Northeast Expressway) was converted for use as an access road.

Historical

Along with government houses, post offices, train stations, and libraries, banks have historically ranked among the most ornate institutional structures in American towns. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the attributes of Beaux Arts Classicism, were employed to convey security and trust to depositors.Following World War II, a fiscal and housing boom increased banking profits, as a new fast moving credit economy became fueled by mortgages and loans. As competition among bank increased, bank architecture was adapted to follow the popular trends of commercial design. As the banking began to transform itself into a retail mass-market industry, it moved to divorce itself from pre-Depression architectural iconography. Deposit insurance enacted in the early 1930s now replaced the need for reassuring edifices and allowed bank buildings to acquire a new, often inexpensive demeanor. The removal of barred teller cages and the relocation of vaults into direct customer view opposed previous models of bank design and attempted to provide greater comfort and reassurance to depositors.In the late 1960s, the legal framework that restricted branch banking (much of which was codified in state constitutions) began to change. Suburban growth in America ultimately led to the relaxation of branch banking regulations, which had either banned them or restricted their location.As drive-in banking facilities became more common, following their introduction in the 1930s, the early period of branch bank design reflected a larger architectural trend toward more varied structural expressionism. Circular banks became more common as increasingly unorthodox geometries were employed in designs. Innovative designs from the 1950s and 60s featured parabolic arches, thin-shell concrete domes, bulbous volumes, and compound curves that sought to express a bank’s technological advancement.

References

Interview with Henri Jova, conducted by Amie A Spinks, 2004.\"Banking on the Future: Modernism and the Local Bank," Carol J. Dyson and Anthony Rubano. Preserving the Recent Past 2, Conference Proceedings, Philadelphia, PA 1999.
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