Stewart Memorial Presbyterian Church, now Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church, is a

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped i ...

church in the Lyndale neighborhood of

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, United States. Prairie School architecture was uncommon for use in churches. This church, which has a flat roof and broad eaves but lacks a bell tower and other traditional church features, was inspired by

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

Unity Temple Unity Temple is a Unitarian Universalist church building that houses the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation at 875 Lake Street in Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The structure, designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in ...

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, adjacent to Chicago. It is the List of municipalities in Illinois, 26th-most populous municipality in Illinois, with a population of 54,318 as of the 2020 census. Oak Park was first se ...

. It was designed by the firm of Purcell & Feick before

George Grant Elmslie George Grant Elmslie (February 20, 1869 – April 23, 1952) was an American Prairie School architect whose works are is mostly found in the Midwestern United States. He worked with Louis Sullivan and later with William Gray Purcell as a partne ...

became a partner of the firm. The congregation was an offshoot of First Presbyterian Church and was named after the Reverend David Stewart. The main portion of the church is organized around a cube-shaped auditorium with light provided by a wall of eastward-facing green-tinted windows. It has a narrower section with a deep balcony that extends to the south. Decoration is relatively modest, consisting mainly of wood strips in geometric patterns. The exterior is faced in brick and stucco. The church was listed on 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 1978. In 1988, Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church bought the building and raised over $2 million for restoration and renovation.

References

External links

"The Architecture and Design of the Prairie School: Stewart Memorial Presbyterian Church"
on Minneapolis Institute of Arts
"Stewart Memorial Presbyterian Church/Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church"
on City of Minneapolis
"Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church: Minneapolis, Minnesota Case Study"
by Maianne Preble on the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota {{National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota 20th-century Presbyterian church buildings in the United States Baptist churches in Minnesota Churches completed in 1910 Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Churches in Minneapolis National Register of Historic Places in Minneapolis Prairie School architecture in Minnesota Presbyterian churches in Minnesota Purcell and Elmslie buildings