Architecture
The rectangular, brick City Building stands two stories tall, and is an example of eclectic influences on Victorian architecture. The building is adjacent to the Fox River (to the west) with its main entrance on the east side at 15 N. Riverside Avenue. The roof is hipped and features a bell tower on the southeastern side, capped with a Byzantine roof. Several shed dormer windows break through the main roof. The soffit is decorated with wood brackets. The front is split into three bays; the middle bay extends beyond the roof to create a large pediment. This dormer allows for an attic. The main set of double doors is beneath a stilted arch. Rectangular, double hung windows on the first floor are also beneath stilted arches, with two large windows north of the entrance and a large door (originally for fire engines) on the south. The second floor has symmetrical pairs of windows on either side of the main bay, with three smaller windows on the center bay. On the interior, a straight staircase leads to the second floor, splitting two large rooms on the first floor. The second floor is similarly split into two rooms, with two small rooms above the entrance.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)