It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic…that form ever follows function.
     - Louis Sullivan, 1896

In many ways, Columbus (Columbia County) looks like a lot of other small Wisconsin cities. The area of modern commercial and industrial development, with its car dealerships and fast-food establishments, straddles the intersection of Highways 16 and 151. Less than a mile to the east, the historic commercial buildings downtown have been converted to modern uses – restaurants, taverns, hair and nail salons, spas, art studios, antique stores, and financial advising and insurance agency offices. 

The corner of East James Street and North Dickason Boulevard is more distinctive. On one corner is Columbus City Hall, a Romanesque style building from 1892, with rounded stone arches framing the doors and windows, a rusticated stone foundation and a clock tower. The building was placed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1979. [1]

Across East James Street is the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) memorial, erected “In memory of our comrades formerly residents of Columbus, Otsego, Hampden, York, Elba & Calamus, who now fill unknown graves. 1861-1865.” [2] The memorial, a bronze statue of a soldier standing on a stone base, is one of more than a dozen GAR monuments in the state.

The memorial stands next to the Columbus Public Library, a Prairie School design from 1912. Designed by the Madison firm of Claude and Starck, it is also listed in the NRHP. [3]

However, the most significant structure at this intersection is the Farmers and Merchants Union Bank, built in 1919. The Bank is within the City of Columbus NRHP Downtown Historic District, comprised of the city’s surviving historically significant commercial buildings built between 1852 and 1938. [4] The district includes several examples of Neo-Classical Revival, Romanesque Revival and Prairie School buildings. The Farmers and Merchants Union Bank is an example of the latter. It was designated in 1983 as a National Historic Landmark, the highest level of significance in the NRHP program.

What makes the bank so special and why is it located here in this midwestern city of 5,500 people?

The Farmers and Merchants Union Bank was designed by renowned architect Louis H. Sullivan, pioneer of the steel-framed skyscraper, mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and a source of inspiration for architects of the Prairie School. Sullivan was also the model for embittered architect Henry Cameron in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.

Sullivan got his start in architecture after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and then studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. By the end of the century, through his professional partnership with Dankmar Adler, he had designed hundreds of buildings. These included some of Chicago’s most iconic and many that have been lost, such as the 1894 Chicago Stock Exchange (demolished in 1972). Sullivan’s dictum was that “form follows function,” which was both a rejection of then contemporary classical design and an idealistic vision in which the design of a building should align with its purpose.

This ideal, taken to an extreme decades later, served as a justification for some of the worst excesses of modernist architecture, including those of the International School, which favored stark, unadorned steel and glass towers. But Sullivan’s architecture was much more organic. His designs incorporated ornate decorative elements in metal or terra cotta (ceramic) reflecting Art Nouveau influences.

The Farmers and Merchants Union Bank follows Sullivan’s form-and-function dictum by imparting an image of financial security, civic monumentality and community activity. [5] But it is the decorative elements that command all the attention. Above the main entrance of the bank is a terra cotta lintel in a dusty green, featuring heraldic shields, lions, creeping vines and a profusion of incised ornament. Above the lintel is a rounded stained glass window with an elaborate terra cotta frame. The dates of the bank’s founding (1861) and the construction of the bank building (1919) are emblazoned on two large round shields on either side of a marble panel carved with the words, “Farmers & Merchants Union Bank” and “Louis H. Sullivan Architect.”

Sullivan called the bank his “jewel box” (an allusion to “form follows function”?) and the term has become associated with a series of banks he designed in several communities in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin between 1907 and 1919. These banks, quoting Dartmouth professor Hugh Morrison, “stand out like jewels on the shoddy main streets of the prairie towns.” [6][7]

The Farmers and Merchants Union Bank was Sullivan’s last commission for a complete building and is one of only two Sullivan buildings in Wisconsin, the other being the 1909 Bradley house in Madison. [6] By the early 1900s, after the dissolution of his partnership with Adler, interest in Sullivan’s designs declined. With commissions drying up, he spent the last years of his life on his jewel boxes and writing about his architectural ideas. He died in 1924, impoverished and, by some accounts, disillusioned and in a state of emotional decline.

The Farmers and Merchants Union Bank in Columbus is regarded as one of the purest expressions of Sullivan’s design philosophy and is known nationally and internationally. This explains its status as a National Historic Landmark, a designation it shares with less than fifty other sites in the state.

For those interested in a closer look, the bank building is open for tours. [8]

Sources:

[1] National Register of Historic Places, 1979. Columbus City Hall. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c1e8d302-ab1d-477b-86f2-a9681f9e55c2

[2] The Historical Marker Database, Grand Army of the Republic Memorial. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=28289

[3] National Register of Historic Places, 1990. Columbus Public Library.  https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/1e5b98d2-e512-462b-b4da-5ba239fd1a83/

[4] National Register of Historic Places, 1992. Columbus Downtown Historic District. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/a61f3033-cff7-4e0e-b68c-712ef52d0c2b/ 

[5] These words are from a plaque attached to the bank.

[6] National Register of Historic Places, 1972. Farmers and Merchants Union Bank. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/bf101d3a-ce21-4340-9763-dbccd1a241f6

[7] Hugh S. Morrison (1905-1978) was Professor of Art at Dartmouth College and wrote Louis Sullivan: Prophet of Modern Architecture in 1935. See p. 175 at https://archive.org/details/louissullivanpro0000morr_y1y3/page/175/mode/1up?q=shoddy

[8] Farmers & Merchants Union Bank. https://fmub.bank/history.html