161 Reviews
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2 ReviewsHistoric Atlanta Architecture
Atlanta's architectural history is a relatively short one, but it does include some significant buildings, locations, and people. Most of Atlanta was burned during the Civil War by Sherman’s troops which left few pre-Civil War buildings intact. Another great fire in the early 1900s destroyed a large swath of Atlanta again, but the city has risen from the ashes to feature a number of beautiful and impressive sites.
Downtown and Sweet Auburn
Among the earliest remaining buildings of note is Atlanta's own Flatiron Building, located on the west side of Peachtree Street across from Woodruff Park in the middle of downtown. Officially known as the English-American Building, it was built in 1897 for the English-American Loan and Trust Company by architect Bradford Gilbert. It predates New York's more famous Flatiron Building, built in 1901, by four years. The Flatiron Building also serves as a sort of gateway to the Fairlie-Poplar Historic District, containing the old U.S. Post Office building (now the Federal Court of Appeals courthouse), the Healey Building, and four other individual buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Thomas H. Morgan, Atlanta's pre-eminent commercial architect of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, was involved with seven of the buildings in Fairlie-Poplar, and the district also contains buildings designed by practically every other Atlanta architect of note from that era, including Neel Reid, Philip Schutze, Walter T. Downing, Alexander Bruce, and P. Thornton Marye.
Across the street and a block or so north from the Flatiron Building, along the north side of Woodruff Park, is the 17-story Candler Building, completed in 1906 and for decades after perhaps the most impressive of the early downtown skyscrapers in Atlanta. Photographs of the building do not do justice to the highly detailed ornamentation and carving of the building's facades and interiors, but the building's web site makes the attempt, as well as providing historic then/now context. Built by Asa G. Candler, one of the founders of the Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta mayor, businessman, and philanthropist, it was designed by architects George Murphy and George Stewart, with significant input from Candler himself.
Like the Candler Building and the Flatiron Building, the Hurt Building (begun in 1913, with completion delayed by World War I until 1926) has a triangular footprint to fit the available plot of land. Developed by engineer and builder Joel Hurt, with additional design work by New York architect J.E.R. Carpenter, the Hurt Building has a four-story base block, topped by thirteen floors in a "V" shape to allow maximum light and ventilation to the upper floors. While relatively restrained compared with contemporary and earlier buildings, suggesting the move toward a cleaner, more "modernist" style, the Hurt Building nevertheless features many classical-style touches, including pilasters along the sides of the base block, a columned rotunda at the apex, etc., as well as colored ornamentation between the rows of windows and cornices at the roof line.
The Sweet Auburn Historic District and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site along Auburn Avenue include several buildings and sites of interest, including the Beaux Arts-style headquarters building for Alonzo Herndon's Atlanta Life Insurance Company (one of the most successful black-owned businesses in the U.S. in the early 20th century), the Rucker Building (the first black-owned office building in the city and the site of the 1928 founding of the Atlanta Daily World, the first black-owned daily newspaper), and numerous churches (Big Bethel AME, First Congregational, Wheat Street Baptist, and the original building for King's own Ebenezer Baptist Church), as well as King's birthplace/home and the surrounding neighborhood.
Oakland Cemetery and Cabbagetown
One site that does predate the Civil War and remains of interest is historic Oakland Cemetery, founded in 1850. Oakland Cemetery occupies an elevated site just east of downtown Atlanta and is the final home for many of Atlanta's notable residents (including Bobby Jones, Margaret Mitchell, and numerous Georgia governors, Atlanta mayors, etc.). The walls, grounds, and monuments of the cemetery are beautiful and fascinating and offer a unique window onto Victorian mores regarding death (and life).
Just east of Oakland Cemetery is the Cabbagetown residential district. Cabbagetown was originally developed by the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill on the north side of the district to provide housing for its workers, who were primarily recruited from the Appalachian areas of North Georgia, giving the neighborhood a distinctly rural, small-town quality it retained until the mill closed in 1977 and the workers dispersed. The neighborhood declined rapidly after the mill closing, and the houses, ranging from simple shotgun-style houses to more elaborate and ornamented Victorian bungalows, became home to many artists and musicians and others seeking low-cost housing in a location close to downtown during the 1980s. The oldest surviving houses, along Reinhardt Street, were built between 1886 and 1892. The Neo-Romanesque factory buildings, constructed between 1881 and 1922, were convered into loft apartments in the 1990s, providing the impetus for a spurt of gentrification that has brought more families, business professionals, and others into the neighborhood.
Industrial Atlanta (Castleberry Hill, Marietta Street)
Grant Park
Inman Park
Midtown
The Fox Theatre at 660 Peachtree Street is one of Atlanta’s highlights. Built in 1929, it is one of the few remaining large "Movie Palaces" of this era. The building architecture is in the style of a Moorish Palace, which was very popular in the late 1920’s, following the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in Egypt. It has been fully restored to its original condition both inside and outside and is now a multi-purpose facility, housing Broadway shows, ballet, symphonies, concerts, movies and private corporate events. The theatre has 4,678 seats and its fully restored "Mighty Mo" organ is the second largest theatre organ in the U.S. Tours of the theatre are available through the Atlanta Preservation Center and are conducted Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. and Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Tours begin in the Peachtree Street Arcade entrance to the theatre. The tour typically is two hours and the cost is $10.00 with discounts for children and seniors. Because events at the theatre sometimes require cancellation of tours, it is advisable to check with the Atlanta Preservation Center at 404-688-3353 to confirm days and times.
