Wainwright Building

About

The Wainwright Building (also known as the Wainwright State Office Building) is a 10-story, 135-foot (41 m) terra cotta office building at 709 Chestnut Street in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Wainwright Building is considered to be one of the first aesthetically fully expressed early skyscrapers. It was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and built between 1890 and 1891. It was named for local brewer, building contractor, and financier Ellis Wainwright.

The building, listed as a landmark both locally and nationally, is described as "a highly influential prototype of the modern office building" by the National Register of Historic Places. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright called the Wainwright Building "the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as Architecture."