W. W. ORR DOCTORS' BUILDING

Historic Context Architectural Context Physical Description References Criteria Findings

Designed and constructed in 1930 to meet the increasingly specialized needs of the medical arts, the W. W. Orr Doctors' Building is significant for its historic associations, architectural and technological innovation, expressive historic character, and high degree of physical integrity and functional continuity. Built in close proximity to the private sanitorium which later became Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital, the building typifies the northward growth of commercial and mixed-use development beyond the congested downtown business district. The building followed in the tradition of the Medical Arts Building constructed at 384 Peachtree Street in 1927, becoming only the second highrise built in Atlanta specifically for the medical profession. The W. W. Orr Building is one of the most innovative products of the twelve-year partnership of architects Robert S. Pringle and Francis P. Smith, both for its fireproof, reinforced-concrete construction and its uncommon Art Deco styling. The eleven-story, cream-colored brick building expresses its original character with uncanny intensity, particularly in its lavish lobby, and in part because it has been maintained and utilized for its original purpose without interruption over the years. As a result of the more recent demolition required for construction of the downtown connector, the W. W. Orr Building has become more visible in Atlanta's cityscape, particularly as seen from the west and south along Peachtree Street.

HISTORIC CONTEXT

Changing conditions in the early decades of the twentieth century set the stage for the 1930 construction of the W. W. Orr Building at the northwest corner of Peachtree and Pine Streets. In 1904 the four-story Marlborough apartment building was built on the corner site, where the residence of John Bulow Campbell, Sr. once stood. The property was owned and developed by the Marlborough Company, founded by Atlanta businessmen George P. Howard, George Muse and William W. Orr. One of Atlanta's first grand apartment buildings, the Marlborough housed many prominent families over the next 17 years. Then, in 1921, the building was converted into a doctors' building, responding to the growth of the nearby medical facility later called Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital. This rather makeshift arrangement continued until April of 1930, when fire destroyed the building and its contents, including costly medical equipment and irreplaceable records.

Almost immediately after the disaster, the Marlborough Company, led by Paul W. Miller, began formulating plans to redevelop the site with a modern, fireproof building especially designed for doctors and dentists. The firm of Pringle and Smith was selected as architects, and the Adams-Cate Company was commissioned to handle tenants' leasing. With guidance from a committee of former tenants led by Dr. F. Phinizy Calhoun, plans were developed for an eleven-story office building with basement, a one-story arcade with four shops, a large parking garage, and a formal garden. The Southern Ferro Concrete Company of Atlanta was awarded the construction contract in July of 1930, and in April of 1931, the first tenants began moving in.

The building was named the W. W. Orr Doctors' Building to honor William W. Orr, who died in 1927. One of the founders of the Marlborough Company, Orr was a former president of the George Muse Clothing Company and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. A prominent churchman, he served on the 1911 executive committee of the Atlanta Chapter of the "Men and Religion Forward Movement," a national movement which urged the application of Christian principles to social concerns. Orr lived at the Marlborough for over a decade before residing at other locations in the neighborhood, including the Biltmore Apartments and an apartment at 14 5th Street N.E.

The Orr Building's features and location -- like those of its related predecessor, the Medical Arts Building -- document the effects of the automobile and other modern pressures in redirecting the growth of Atlanta. Such buildings offered amenities not typical in the older downtown area, such as modern mechanical systems, easy access by car, and adjacent garage parking. A construction boom in the 1920s and early 1930s embraced these amenities, bringing modern commercial and apartment buildings into previously residential areas, such as the Peachtree Street corridor. Accordingly, construction of the Orr Building was paralled by the construction of scores of multi-story buildings in the surrounding area and farther north, such as the Ponce de Leon Apartments and the Cox-Carlton Hotel (now the Peachtree Days Inn).

While other Peachtree Street buildings such as the Georgian Terrace Hotel have suffered subsequent periods of decline, the Orr Building has enjoyed a highly stable history of maintenance and use. The northeast quarter of the ground floor, for example, has been occupied continuously by Ballard Opticians since the mid-1930s and retains much of its original character. The upper floors have been modified more extensively and adjacent additions have been constructed, but the function of the building has remained the same. Remarkably, a comparison of tenants in the 1930s and the 1980s reveals that several dental and medical offices of the 1930s are being maintained today by sons of the original tenants.

ARCHITECTURAL CONTEXT

The W. W. Orr Building constitutes a notable milestone in the development of Pringle and Smith, a prominent Atlanta architectural firm of the 1920s and early 1930s. Founded in 1922, the firm designed many widely-recognized buildings in Atlanta and the southeast before its dissolution in 1934. Traditional and Beaux-Arts elements were characteristic of the firm's earlier commercial buildings, such as the Cox-Carlton Hotel of 1926, the Norris Building of 1926 (destroyed 1944), and the extraordinary, "Byzantine"-style Rhodes-Haverty Building of 1929. However, in the W. W. Orr and William-Oliver Buildings of 1930, Pringle and Smith incorporated the bolder, modernistic elements of the Art Deco style. Inspired by the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes, Art Deco was popular in American commercial construction of the Great Depression, but was not widely applied in Atlanta in particular. The Orr Building, then, is significant as a well-preserved and uncommon example of restrained Art Deco styling in Atlanta, less ornate but more monumental than other local examples such as the Kress Building (1933) at 1012-1014 Peachtree Street.

Pringle and Smith typified the new generation of architects which emerged in the 1920s, professionals whose experience and training were more sophisticated and uniform than the apprenticeships of their predecessors. Francis Palmer Smith, the firm's principal designer, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1886. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was strongly influenced by professor Paul Phillippe Cret (1876-1945), a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1909, Smith moved to Atlanta to become the first director of the architecture department at the Georgia School (now Institute) of Technology. Students of the program during Smith's tenure included Flippen D. Burge and Preston S. Stevens, who later formed the partnership of Burge and Stevens. Shortly after leaving Georgia Tech, Smith opened an office with Pringle in 1922. Robert Smith Pringle was born in 1883 in Summerville, S. C. He was educated in Columbia, S. C., where he established a practice in 1902. In 1917 he moved to Atlanta, where he was in private practice until joining in partnership with Smith. Their practice ended in 1934 due to Pringle's failing health, and Pringle died of a heart condition in 1937. Smith continued to practice architecture until his death in Atlanta in 1971, working with other architects including his son, Henry H. Smith.

Two buildings later constructed adjacent to the original W. W. Orr Building are less distinguished architecturally but do not detract from the original building. In 1946 a three-story building ( the "B" Building) was constructed immediately to the northwest to provide additional offices and parking. The building was designed by the Atlanta partnership of Frances Louis Abreau (1896- 1969) and James Lee Robeson (1896-?), both of whom designed Mediterranean Revival-style buildings in Ft. Lauderdale and coastal Georgia before adopting the International Style in the late 1930s. One of the most appealing elements of this addition is the courtyard formed by the two buildings and the arcade that connects them. The verdant landscaping and tranquil fish pond are the work of William Crooks Pauley (1893-1985), noted Atlanta landscape architect whose designs include Joel Hurt Memorial Park (dedicated 1940). In 1964 a five-story building (the "C" Building) was added on Peachtree Street directly north of the main W. W. Orr Building, at which time the original one-story shops in between were re-faced.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

The W. W. Orr Building measures 75 feet wide on Peachtree Street and 107 feet deep on Pine Street. The floor plan is not a true rectangle because its eastern and southern edges closely abut Pine and Peachtree Streets, which do not intersect at right angles. The building retains its original configuration of a basement, a ground-floor lobby with shops and offices, and ten upper stories of professional offices. The reinforced concrete structure derives its strength from a steel service core where the stairway, three elevators, bathrooms, spiral fire escape slide (no longer useable), and mechanical systems are consolidated. The use of reinforced concrete and a central supporting core were significant technological innovations in highrise construction of the era, and for years the Orr Building was one of the tallest buildings on Atlanta's north side. A linear, east-west lobby at the ground floor connects the building's elaborate Peachtree Street entrance with its original porte-cochere on the rear (west) side. A second, perpendicular corridor runs northward from the main lobby to join the lobby of the "C" Building, built in 1964 on the site of the original parking garage. A block of four, one-story commercial stalls retain their original orientation directly north of the eleven-story building, though their Peachtree Street facades were remodeled in 1964. H-shaped lobbies on the upper floors minimize long corridors by surrounding the central service core with offices on all sides.

The building's exterior incorporates the simple but bold elements of the Art Deco or Moderne style, named after the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratif of 1925 through which the forms were first recognized. The dominant features of the elevations are their massive surface planes, smooth facade materials, emphatically vertical arrangements, and limited but dramatic use of ornamentation. The lower two floors are faced with limestone above a short base of polished granite and capped with a thin frieze of terra cotta. The main entrance on Peachtree is made of black granite enhanced by fluted granite columns, ornate cast-bronze grills, and slender, wall- mounted metal lamps. The porte-cochere at the rear is made of concrete clad in limestone. The main part of the building is made of cream-colored brick, with a central bay on each elevation that projects slightly forward. Terra cotta panels below the windows of the central bays accentuate the upward thrust of the vertical columns of windows. Unlike its Beaux-Arts predecessors, which typically culminated in projecting bands and cornices, the W. W. Orr Building is capped with a tall, low-relief band of elaborately patterned terra-cotta The building's commercial medical function is announced by medical caducei incorporated into the second-story terra cotta panels.

REFERENCES

Atlanta's Lasting Landmarks, Atlanta Urban Design Commission, 1987.

Garrett, Franklin. Atlanta and Environs, Vol. II. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1954.

Lyon, Elizabeth Anne Mack. "Business Buildings in Atlanta: A Study in Urban Growth and Form." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1970.

Marsh, Kermit B., ed. The American Institute of Architecture Guide to Atlanta. Atlanta, 1975.

CRITERIA
(criteria descriptions)

Group I (2)
Group II (1) (2) (4) (6) (7) (9) (10) (11)
Group III (1) (2) (3)

FINDINGS

The proposed nomination of the W.W. Orr Building meets the above-referenced criteria for a Landmark Building or Site as set out in Section 16-20.004 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Atlanta.

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