A Sculpture by Marc O’Carroll

In the summer of 1976, Marc O’Carroll, a student and artist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), designed and installed the Mnemonic sculpture next to the campus’ Fine Arts Building. The sculpture, a collection of steel trees displayed in various stages of being chopped down, brought a unique appeal to an institution that seemed overly engrossed with rapidly expanding in size and scope at any cost necessary.

As a student at the university, Marc O’Carroll grew fond of a massive and ancient sycamore tree that was located behind the school’s Dining Hall. The sycamore had stood on the campus years before administrators had begun planning for the UMBC campus. However, university workers cut down the tree in 1976 to build a short driveway for trucks to pull into during the construction of the new University Center. When O’Carroll was commissioned by the university to construct a sculpture project, he decided to pay homage to the destroyed sycamore tree by building the Mnemonic. O’Carroll intended for the sculpture to stand as a memorial to all the trees that had been cut down to make way for new campus construction projects during the 1970s.

By welding his memories in steel, Marc O’Carroll created a dynamic sculpture that invites people to reminisce about nature and its surroundings. Although the artist is no longer at UMBC and neither is the massive sycamore tree, the Mnemonic carries on the memories of both.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250

Modernist former Maryland National Bank on North Avenue

The former Maryland National Bank building at the southwest corner of Maryland and North Avenues is a faded but still striking example of the modern architecture that accompanied the city’s growth in the 1950s and 1960s. The Fidelity Baltimore National Bank (a predecessor of Maryland National) opened their first branch location on North Avenue since the late 1930s. In the mid-1950s, the firm built a drive-in on the eastern side of Maryland Avenue—a structure still in use today as the home of K & M Motors.

The local architectural firm of Smith & Veale (Albert K. Broughton serving as the project architect) designed the modern building and the general contractor was the Lacchi Construction Company. Broughton remained a practicing architect in Maryland up through 2002, shortly before his death in 2005. Reflecting the continued importance of automobiles to retail banking, a large parking lot was located on the southern side of the building and the branch was designed so patrons could enter the bank from either North Avenue or the parking lot.

As the building went up in March 1961, the Baltimore Sun touted the bank as the city’s first commercial building with a precast concrete frame. The Nitterhouse Concrete Product Company in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania cast a series of t-shaped elements that were then transported to Baltimore by truck.

The Maryland National Bank sold the property in 1990 and, sometime after 1995, the Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland (KAGRO) moved into the building as their office. In 2015, the Contemporary occupied the building for an exhibition by artist Victoria Fu. The exhibition, Bubble Over Green, is described as multilayered audio-visual experience consisting of moving images projected onto architectural surfaces, aligning the physical site with the space and textures of digital post-production.

101 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

A Modernist Gem from Urban Renewal

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip’s edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore’s history over the years since the building’s dedication in 1958.

The ordinary or quotidian in architecture often masks the unique, especially if time serves to dull the patina of something’s newness. St. Philip’s Lutheran Church is case-in-point: a faded Modernist gem, the church nevertheless embodies the remarkable story of its congregation’s persistence.

Now in its sixth decade, the St. Philip’s edifice still serves the vibrant community that built it, despite the exigencies of Baltimore’s history over the years since the building’s dedication in 1958.

Home to the nation’s second-oldest African American Lutheran congregation, St. Philip’s is also the first church in America to be built under the auspices of urban renewal. Accordingly, its design reflects both church-goers’ rapidly-changing expectations in the years after World War II and city planners’ embrace of modernist planning solutions. Set back from the street and moderately scaled—like a suburban house—St. Philip’s Lutheran Church reflects mostly the ideas of its pastor at the time, the Rev. Francis B. Smith. Congregational lore and extant sketches by Rev. Smith attest to his direct involvement in the building’s design; the architect, Frederic Moehle, seems mostly to have translated Rev. Smith’s directions into the final, three-dimensional form.

Despite its modest exterior, St. Philip’s created considerable architectural drama within. Alone among Baltimore’s contemporary religious buildings, St. Philip’s low ceiling is illuminated extensively by continuous, floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides. An extensive clerestory window (now, unfortunately, covered over) washed the altar and its podium with “ineffable light.” Otherwise, the original finishes of the church interior were entirely consistent with the Modernist’s creed: unfinished block and brick masonry (stacked bond), naturally-finished wood, linoleum tile floor, and serene abstraction throughout the space.

Rev. Smith and the St. Philip’s congregation fought hard to wrest those qualities from the City’s “Urban Renewal Plan 3-A” – a.k.a. the “Broadway Redevelopment Plan” – laid out by architect Alex Cochran and first announced publicly in 1950. St. Philip’s had occupied a historic structure on Eden Street, designated by Plan 3-A to be demolished and appropriated for Dunbar High School’s expanded athletic fields. No provision was made in Cochran’s original plan to relocate St. Philip’s, but a decade of persistent negotiation between Rev. Smith and Baltimore’s Redevelopment Commission resulted in the congregation’s purchase of the present site on Caroline Street. Construction proceeded apace, a year before Cochran’s own celebrated design for the nearby Church of Our Savior (now demolished) could begin.

Recent changes have tarnished St. Philip’s architectural shine: roof-top AC units, faux-wood paneling, “traditional” chandeliers, and much-needed heat-resistant glazing. An addition at the south-east corner provided accessibility for the disabled. But the building is still substantially the building it was in 1958. Especially on the exterior, the church’s bulk and orientation still express an ease belied only by Johns Hopkins Hospital’s looming physical presence immediately to the east. What appears “quotidian” is, therefore, merely that superficial change wrought by time; what is of interest at St. Philip’s remains entirely present, if just below the surface.

Research for this story included contributions from Nancy Fox, Amy Frank, and Khashayar Shahkolahi. Special thanks to Rev. Michael Guy, St. Philip’s Lutheran Church.

501 N. Caroline Street, Baltimore, MD 21205