Minneapolis Institute of Art

Window

Designer: George Grant Elmslie

Date

c. 1918–21

Medium

Glass, lead caming

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

George Grant Elmslie began drawing up plans for the Capital Building and Loan Association in 1918, but construction did not begin until 1922, after the firm of Purcell and Elmslie had been dissolved. The lower level is in the style of previous Purcell and Elmslie banks, and the upper stories recall some of Elmslie's past work with Sullivan. By this time the Prairie School was fast losing ground to modernism. But in the windows for Capital Building and Loan, Elmslie still used repeated geometric forms and colors to unify the interior and exterior. The larger panes have small colored squares surrounding a central rectangle of clear glass, much like his earlier windows. The smaller panes feature circle motifs and rectangles of varying size, reminiscent of the windows in Frank Lloyd Wright's Avery Coonley playhouse (1912). United States, Americas

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