Alvan Small, Architect | Part 2: Designs for Education and Business
By Michael Bridgeman
The Capital Times printed a brief profile of Small in 1925. Image: The Capital Times, March 10, 1925, through Newspapers.com.
Click to enlarge
Last month, I introduced Madison architect Alvan Small, focusing on his designs for houses. This month I highlight his non-residential designs including schools, commercial buildings, and structures for manufacturing and warehousing. Different in scale, requirements, and cost than his domestic jobs, these projects were, for the most part, no less successful than Small’s residential work.
You’ll find a biographical sketch of Small as part of the earlier post. For many years, his office was in the Ellsworth Block at 23 N. Pinckney St. In 1929, he was one of seven architects who met at the Belmont Hotel to establish the Madison Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Other charter members were John J. Flad, Edward J. Law, James R. Law, Frank S. Moulton, Arthur Peabody, and Frank Riley.
In their survey of Madison’s “master architects,” Katherine Rankin and Timothy Heggland write that, “Small’s non-residential work is less numerous but of equally high quality”[1] as his house designs. In all of his work he shows a strong sense of composition, proportion, and style that resulted in appealing buildings, many of which we can still see and admire
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Two Schools
Randall School is Small’s most visible and best school design. The school is within the University Heights National Register historic district and the nomination credits it to “Alvan Small of Lew F. Porter Assoc.” The first schoolhouse dates to 1906 while Small was in Porter’s office and shortly before Porter left to become supervising architect of the new state capitol. Small opened his own office in 1907.
The original façade opened to Spooner Street and is now obscured by a lushly planted “outdoor classroom.” The National Register nomination ascribes the school to the Craftsman style, considered among the “progressive styles” of the early 20th century. Small combined Craftsman with Tudor elements resulting in a notable work of civic architecture. The Tudor touches include the low, wide arch at the entrance, drip moldings over the first-floor windows, and half-timbering effects in the gables.
When he was contracted to design an addition to Randall School six years later, Small continued the rhythms, materials and details of his earlier design. Edward Tough did the same as the architect for a further expansion completed in 1925. Today the school serves about 350 students in grades 3 through 5. Over more than 100 years of continuous use Randall School has retained remarkable architectural integrity.
The entrance to the original building was on Spooner Street. The building is identified simply as Randall (not Randall School) on Small’s insistence. “If anybody doesn’t know by looking at it that it is a school,”[2] he reportedly said, “it must be a pretty poor schoolhouse.” Photo: WHS Architecture & History Inventory 94722
Randall School saw two major expansions in its first two decades and the principal façade now faces Regent Street. The original clay tile roofing was replaced in the late 1990s, despite some fretting over its high cost. The roof is expected last 75 to 100 years. Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Small’s most progressive school design was demolished 50 years ago. In 1917, Small was hired to create a new school to serve a nascent suburb in the Town of Madison. The Madison Realty Co. understood that replacing an old one-room frame schoolhouse would make the suburb more attractive to young families. Small gave them Nakoma School, a two-room Prairie-style building that cost $15,000. Its Prairie character was augmented seven years later when Small & Flad planned an addition that included 12 classrooms. Further additions were made in 1928 (Flad & Moulton) and 1937 (Law, Law & Potter).
Describing Nakoma School, Gordon Orr wrote, “…this school, unlike others of the time, blended with the residential neighborhood, while being clearly understood as a school. It psychologically allowed the elementary pupil to feel at home.”[3] It was absorbed into the Madison school district in 1931 when the Nakoma area was annexed to the city. The building was razed in 1970 and Thoreau School now stands on the site.
This illustration accompanied a story about the new Nakoma School in the Wisconsin State Journal. The school—“an attractive two-story structure built of hollow tile, with brick trimmings and stucco finish”—welcomed 31 pupils when it opened in late 1917.
Image: Wisconsin State Journal, July 15, 1917, through Newspapers.com
The Prairie style of Nakoma School became more pronounced with a two-story addition in 1928, seen here in the center of the structure. Small’s original schoolhouse, marked by a window box, is part of the far wing in this 1931 photo. This building was replaced by Thoreau School at 3870 Nakoma Road in 1971.
Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID 19401
Early Business Buildings
Small had two important business projects soon after setting up his own practice in 1907. The first was a new home for the Madison Saddlery Co. on East Wilson Street, strategically sited along the Milwaukee Road train tracks. The building housed a factory for making harness and other leather goods, a warehouse, and offices. The main façade of the “commercial vernacular” structure features seven segmental arches over recessed windows. Decorative flourishes—all in brick—include raised courses on the ground floor, diamond-shaped patterns in the spandrels between the second and third floor windows, and the projecting brick cornice.
The parapet of the Madison Saddlery Building, which bears the name Hoebel in this 1910 illustration, is now gone. Charles Hoebel was the German immigrant who founded the saddle works. The L.L. Olds Seed Company rented space here for several years.
Image: Internet Archive CAT31291017
The façade of the Madison Saddlery Building at 317 E. Wilson St. remains largely unchanged today, though without its original parapet. It has long been home to Rubin’s Furniture.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Small’s second early business project, dating to 1908, was a new office and printing facility for the Wisconsin State Journal that demonstrated his proficiency with contemporary commercial design. This is the structure pictured over Small’s right shoulder in the 1908 caricature that was part of last month’s post. After the creation of the combined Madison Newspapers Inc. in 1948, the Capital Times moved its offices to the building. MNI opened its current facility on Fish Hatchery Road in 1975 and this building was demolished in 1980.
The four-story State Journal Building at 115 S. Carroll St. is seen here in 1964 before the exterior was modernized and significantly altered. The site is now occupied by the recently renovated and expanded 25 West Main Building.
Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID 117635
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Two of a Kind
Two side-by-side buildings designed by Small are twins. Completed about one year apart, they show the architect’s deft use of composition and ornament. Both structures were constructed of reinforced concrete, steel, and brick for durability and fire resistance. “Not a particle of wood is used in the [Olds] building, even the window sashes being made of metal”[4] according to a newspaper report. The Williamson Street pair present nearly identical, brick-clad facades to the street. The main differences are the parapets and the entries. The east entrance to the Olds building is the grander of the two, with pilasters supporting a Neoclassical-style cornice in contrasting stone. The two buildings became one in the 1980s when they were converted to office space.
Client connections have long been important to architects. In this instance the first building to be completed was for Capital City Paper, a company owned by Thomas Morris who hired Small to design his house on Summit Avenue at about the same time. The second building was the new home of the L.L. Olds Seed Company, which had been renting space in the Small-designed Madison Saddlery Building (above).
Above illustrations: Though illustrated separately, these buildings shared a common wall. The Capital City Paper building (left) at 714-716 Williamson St. opened in 1913 and the the L.L. Olds Seed Company headquarters (right) at 720 Williamson St. was occupied in 1914. Images: Wisconsin State Journal, May 18, 1912, and November 22, 1913 through Newspapers.com
With modern, uniform fenestration, the two buildings look very much alike today.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Decorative brickwork is carried across both facades as seen at the third and fourth floors. The triangular pediment of the 1913 Capital City Paper building is on the left and the stepped pediment of the 1914 Olds Seed building is on the right.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Prairie Style
Small brought the Prairie style to two non-residential projects: a small commercial building on State Street and a large warehouse on East Washington Avenue. Inherently very different than his Prairie houses, the two structures show Small’s skill and inventiveness with Prairie design.
In 1914, Small devised a narrow, three-story building on State Street for Ernest W. Eddy. Its Prairie pedigree is most evident in Small’s extensive use of Sullivanesque ornament. Louis Sullivan, the spiritual godfather of modern American architecture, developed a unique approach to ornament. Small had worked in Sullivan’s Chicago office for a short time in 1899 and, like other architects influenced by Sullivan, would sometimes incorporate details emulating his work. For a small project like the Eddy building, it’s likely that Small turned to a supplier such as the Midland Terra Cotta Company in Chicago, which designed and manufactured architectural ornament in a range of styles including Sullivanesque. Regardless of its source, Small deployed the ornament effectively to create a distinctive façade.
The first floor of 317 State St., with its plate-glass windows and prism-glass transom, was home to one of E.W. Eddy’s One Minute restaurants until 1925 when he sold the building. At that time the upper floors were rented to a masseur and a dentist.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
The first floor is faced with terra cotta panels. Sullivanesque ornament appears at the corners and on the projecting cornice. Wood panels that covered the façade for many years marred the terra cotta.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Sullivanesque ornament adorns the engaged columns and capitals on the upper floors. Decorative panels appear at the parapet below terra cotta coping.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
The Klueter & Company Wholesale Grocery Warehouse is Small’s most distinctive project for a commercial client. In the nomination for the National Register of Historic Places the 1916 building is described as “one of Small’s finest, extant, non-residential structures designed in the Prairie School style, a style in which he excelled.”[5] It is also Madison’s only “industrial-type structure” in the Prairie style. It was recently integrated into the new Hotel Indigo on East Washington Avenue.
The warehouse has a reinforced concrete frame and is faced on all sides by brick—decorative red brick on the two street façades and common brick elsewhere. Limestone trim is limited to the coping and the main entrance on East Washington Avenue. Square towers define each of the three visible corners. They barely project from the main mass and have low, triangular parapets. The towers have single windows aligned vertically while the wall expanses between them have larger windows that are grouped horizontally.
I particularly like how Small used brick for decorative effects. Bands of raised brick set off the raised basement and first floor. The windows on the upper floors are framed by slightly projecting bricks. At the top of the building Small used strips of raised bricks between the windows, quoins at the corners of the towers, and a rectilinear Prairie-style ornament that repeats on each face of the towers. The brickwork, combined with the clustered windows, accentuate the horizontal to counter the verticality of the corner towers.
The Klueter Warehouse at 901 E. Washington Ave. (right) is now part of the Hotel Indigo, a recent example of adaptive re-use. Julius Kleuter built “The Largest and Most Sanitary Grocery Warehouse in Southern Wisconsin,” according to company promotion.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Bands of raised brick and deep window reveals at ground level give the warehouse a firm visual footing. The sign is near the main entrance to the warehouse. The Hotel Indigo entry is at the rear of the new addition.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
Small used raised brickwork for varied effects at the top of the building, including the decorative motif under the parapet. All window framing was updated for the hotel conversion.
Photo: Michael Bridgeman
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I’ve not detailed all of Small’s non-residential work. He also designed the Grimm Book Bindery (1926) at 454 W. Gilman St., which was converted to garden apartments in the 1980s. With John Flad he designed additions to Lowell Elementary School (1927) at 401 Maple Ave. Even without looking at all of Alvan Small’s output, the take-away is that his work is “uniformly excellent,” as asserted by Katherine Rankin and Timothy Heggland.[6] The care and attention Small gave to his designs is what I find enjoyable about looking at buildings, learning their stories, and coming to know their makers.
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Rankin, Katherine H. and Timothy Heggland. Madison Intensive Survey Master Architects. (draft) City of Madison, 2006. p. 233.
The Capital Times, “Randall School to marks it founding with a year of events.” Aug. 29, 2006.
Orr, Gordon D. “Prairie Architecture in Madison, Wisconsin. Influences, Forms and Form-Givers.” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971) pp. 81-82.
Wisconsin State Journal, “New Fire-Proof Building Occupied by Olds Company.” Nov. 22, 1913.
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Klueter & Company Wholesale Grocery Warehouse, Madison, Wis. 2018. Section 8, p. 1.
Rankin and Heggland, p. 232.