Built in 1951, Montclair is a luxury, high-rise apartment building in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. Its Art Deco style and architectural setback are both signatures of its architect, Rosario Candela. The building’s original lobby featured polished black marble on both the interior and exterior. It was lost to demolition in the 1980s when the exterior was replaced with an anachronistic stucco porte-cochère.
The 2016 renovation of the lobby draws inspiration from the building’s original design, inserting deco influence into a modern design aesthetic. In both a modern and historic gesture, the canopy’s letters extrude back, drawing visitors into the building from the street. As an homage to the original lobby’s polished black marble material, the face of the letters is a high-gloss, black finish. At night the letters illuminate internally and read as neutral white.
The canopy letters are an alteration of the typeface Johnston by Edward Johnston. The lettering serves as a new brand mark for the property and symbolizes this new chapter in the building’s history.
- Chris Mitchell
- David Gwinn
- Stacy Lunardini
- Lindsey Phillips
- Fabricator
- Ben Ziglin
