More Modernism by the Civic Center

With the successful Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places and a forthcoming corresponding local designation on the Civic Center, modernism in architecture and in planning is on the mind. It's definitely a mixed bag, and we'll be returning to it, as there are several interesting threads to pursue. 

Here's an extended footnote on an older post, "Mid-Century Modern in Salem: Four Buildings Better than the Bank."

Just across the street from the Library at the west end of Gaiety Hill are two other modernist buildings of a little earlier vintage.

One of them has been the office building and mall on the northwest corner of Leslie and Commercial Street.

Insurance Center, from Commercial (2013)

We've been interested in the building for a while, and in 2019 wrote:

A firm that may be a successor to Payne Settecase Smith, Anderson Shirley, is in one of Salem's interesting mid-century modern things across the street from the Library. It would be good to learn whether it is a Payne Settecase Smith design.

Guess what, it is!

November 2nd, 1964

When it was under construction in 1964 the paper blurbed it, focusing on the construction firm, whose owner was also part owner of the building, and notes "the drawing is by Payne & Settecase, architects." (This is before Smith joined the firm.)

It opened in 1965. Eight or so small insurance firms clustered in it.

April 16th, 1965

Insurance Center, from Leslie (2013)

The other, just across the parking lot on the north, is the Virgil T. Golden mortuary. I go back and forth on it as a moderne confection, sometimes relishing the way it stands out in Salem, other times thinking it a little over-the-top. Either way it stands out and gives variety to the streetscape.

Virgil T. Golden, corner detail (2013)

It opened in October of 1949, and its designer is never identified as an architect. All I can find are references to D. A. Huston as a "designer." 

January 17th, 1947

Two years earlier Dolan A. Huston had filed a DBA for "D. A. Huston" and started advertising. These only lasted a few months. He's also mentioned with the Quisenberry store - now a pot shop! - in the former General Hospital area. And little else. There might be more to the story here.

October 6th, 1949

Today, the more famous names associated with the building are those of Lord & Schryver, who apparently did the landscaping. Is there a lost Lord & Schryver garden of some kind here?

October 8th, 1949

It would be nice to know what the area between the Insurance Center and mortuary looked like before they paved the parking lot. 

The oak in fall (2013)

I wonder if Lord & Schryver had any role in siting the building in a way to feature the oak. The mortuary project does not seem to be discussed much, merely listed as an instance of their work.

St. Mark's Lutheran (2013)

A third building from the earlier post is not near the Civic Center, and there was less mystery about St. Mark's on Marion and Winter, which has seemed here to be the most lovely modernist church in Salem. There were several churches designed and erected in the 1950s, and there is likely more to say about them as a group. James Payne had a few years earlier also designed St. Paul's Episcopal by Bush Park, for example.

December 3rd, 1956

May 3rd, 1958

The designer of St. Mark's, Harold Wagoner, now seems like a bigger deal than seemingly he was as the papers discussed him in the late 1950s. They mention him merely in passing, one detail among several. His stature was not notable here and at that time.

So much of Salem's modernism is on the suburban template: Low-rise building, oriented horizontally, and set on a parking lot. It's hard to discern what is really terrific. As a trend, it generally needs a do-over for more walkable, urban fabric. But there are also some interesting details that, in part because the buildings are so auto-oriented, might be overlooked and are worth more attention.