American Security and Trust Company
- Architect
- York and Sawyer
- Year
- 1905
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Washington, DC
- Collection
- the city beautiful
Completed in 1905 for the American Security and Trust Company, this Neoclassical bank building on Pennsylvania Avenue was designed by York and Sawyer to closely echo the Riggs National Bank building next door, which the same firm had finished in 1902 — the two are sometimes read as a single composition.
the building
Hexastyle portico. The east facade centers on a portico of six Ionic columns and full entablature flanked by two plain bays, while the narrower south face uses a shallower recess framed by Doric pilasters. Despite two rows of exterior windows, the interior is a single tall banking floor, remodeled in 1931-1932 with a new north annex but otherwise unchanged in form.
the style
The Neoclassical design gave a fledgling trust company the same columned, temple-fronted gravitas long used by banks to project financial solidity.
More on Neoclassicalthe architect
York and Sawyer built a national reputation designing bank headquarters in the Neoclassical idiom; this commission paired directly with their Riggs National Bank building next door.
significance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated an individual DC Historic Landmark.
nearby
- Riggs National Bank
- W. B. Hibbs and Company Building
- Freedman's Bank Building
- Bond Building
- Commercial National Bank
- National Metropolitan Bank