Circle Tower is a 14-story high rise at 55 Monument Circle in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

, United States. The building is a contributing property of the

Washington Street–Monument Circle Historic District Washington Street–Monument Circle Historic District is a national historic district located at Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, covering the first two blocks of East and West Washington and Market streets, the south side of the 100 block ...

, which was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1997. The building was designed by Rubush & Hunter and is an example of

Art Deco architecture Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s, ...

. The building features ziggurat-like upper floors to circumvent a height restriction which was set by the city planners. Another design element is the use of Egyptian motifs and artwork.

Planning

The Tower Realty Company was approved to build on the site in 1929. By May 1929 the site was cleared by razing buildings which included the State Savings and Trust and the Franklin buildings. There was also the four-story building of the Starr Piano Company on the site which had to be purchased and razed. The piano store's 99-year lease also had to be purchased by the Tower Realty Company. The Circle Tower building construction, including the 99 year lease of the piano company, was $1.7 million (). ''

The Indianapolis Star } ''The Indianapolis Star'' (also known as ''IndyStar'') is a morning daily newspaper that began publishing on June 6, 1903, in Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It has been the only major daily paper in the city since 1999, whe ...

'' reported that the lobby and walls would feature imported marble, carved granite, limestone and bronze, and that automatic elevators would be installed. The architects announced that their design would be a nine-story building with five additional stories erected on the set-back principle of construction. By October 3, 1929, most of the structure's exterior had been built.

History

Circle Tower was completed in 1930 and is located on

Monument Circle The Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monument is a tall neoclassical monument built on Monument Circle, a circular, brick-paved street that intersects Meridian and Market streets in the center of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. In the years ...

. It is in the style of Art Deco architecture. The building has of floorspace and features an Egyptian motif with other design details that include an ornate lobby. In 1997, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contribution property of the Washington Street–Monument Circle Historic District. The Chicago co-working company Expansive purchased the building from Ambrose Property Group for $11.65 million in 2017. The buyer intended to renovate parts of the building for

co-working Coworking is an arrangement in which workers for different companies share an office space. It allows cost savings and convenience through the use of common infrastructures, such as equipment, utilities and receptionist and custodial services, a ...

space. In 2023, Expansive was sued by Centier Bank of

Merrillville, Indiana Merrillville ( , ) is a town in Ross Township, Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 36,444 at the 2020 census. Merrillville is in east-central Lake County, in the Chicago metropolitan area. On January 1, 2015, Merrillville bec ...

, for non-payment and bankruptcy proceedings began.

Design

The building was designed by Rubush & Hunter. The elevators in the building are adorned with an art-deco motif featuring a black-and-gold color scheme with various carvings.

King Tut Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of an ...

's tomb had been discovered in 1922 and ''

'' newspaper stated that there was a "nationwide obsession with all things Egyptian". The newspaper stated that the tomb's discovery was the reason for the Egyptian motifs which appear in the design elements of the building. There are granite sculptures in the arched entryway and Indianapolis sculptor Joseph Willenborg created a bronze grill with Egyptian figures. The highest stories of the building are ziggurat-like, tapering back from the lower stories. A 1922 city ordinance limited buildings on the Circle to a height of no more than . Rubush and Hunter were able to incorporate the set-back upper levels to make the building taller.

Gallery

File:Detroit Photographic Company (0339) - Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, Indianapolis.jpg,

Photochrom Photochrom, Fotochrom, Photochrome or the Aäc process is a process of hand-colouring of photographs, hand-colouring photographs from a single black-and-white photographic negative, negative with subsequent photographic transfer onto Lithography, ...

of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument c. 1904 before Circle Tower File:Monument Circle, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.jpg, Monument Circle, with Circle Tower on the left (2014) File:Circle Tower - panoramio.jpg, Circle Tower (2012) File:Circle Tower - 2016-03-14 - Deb Nystrom 01.jpg, Circle Tower Egyptian design elements

References

Exterior links