Falstaff Brewery Headquarters (1956)

The Bank Building & Equipment Corporation promoted beauty and efficiency in concrete and glass.  And it didn’t only work for bank presidents, but for brewmeisters looking to streamline the efficiency of their office functions.  More than 300 members of Falstaff Brewery’s executive and administrative staff occupied their new headquarters in St. Louis in mid-October 1957.  For the growing company, they stated that it represented a symbol of growth and progress.  Its streamlined design exhibited many of the signature elements of the Bank Building & Equipment Corporation’s style for the decade as it was designed by their Chief of Design, W. A. Sarmiento.  The heavy masonry tower at one end providing not only a mechanical and utility corridor, but a colorful terminus to a horizontally oriented mass of intricately mixed steel panels and windows in an aluminum grid.  The staid modernist plaza in front with low plantings gave one the sense of arrival to a new landmark.

More information is available from A Falstaff Collector.

Photo credit: W.A. Sarmiento