Dale Williams Fine Arts Center
Missouri Baptist University
One College Park Drive
Creve Coeur, Missouri 63141
www.mobap.edu

The Chamber Chorus has sung in academic buildings before, including Harris-Stowe State University and Concordia Seminary, but this one at Missouri Baptist University is the newest in the newest institution. Missouri Baptist University began in 1957 as a series of non-degree religious and liberal arts courses offered at Tower Grove Baptist Church on Magnolia Avenue. The Missouri Baptist Convention authorized a full college in 1960, but progress was slow at first. The board of trustees was first impaneled in 1964, classes began at the 46-acre Creve Coeur campus in 1968, and the first class graduated in 1973.

Pillsbury Chapel and Dale Williams Fine Arts Center is the school”s seventh building, but its first by Wm. B. Ittner, Inc., and the first consciously intended to create a memorable image for the campus, as well as being a focus for the institution”s community life. Although its name suggests two separate gathering places, the building does not actually have a separate chapel but instead centers on the 960-seat Auditorium, which serves a multitude of campus uses. The 155-seat Recital Hall accommodates smaller events, while studios, video and audio control rooms, classrooms, and faculty and executive offices occupy other parts of the building. The spacious Mabee Great Hall, with its dramatic staircase rotunda, serves as an entry and also as a reception room for groups up to 350.

The architectural firm”s association with Baptists goes back at least to the design of Delmar Baptist Church at Skinker and Washington in 1917. The firm is named for William B. Ittner, the St. Louis son of a brick manufacturer who became nationally famous for his sturdy but humane school buildings. Beginning in 1897, he designed 50 schools for St. Louis, and through his private practice founded in 1899, he did more than 500 more around the country before his death in 1936. The firm continued under his son, William B. Ittner, Jr., and then passed to other owners, but always following the same emphasis on educational buildings.

May 27, 2007 marked the first performance at Missouri Baptist University by the Chamber Chorus.

Notes by Esley Hamilton and Philip Barnes
Exterior photo by Roger Hill
Interior photo by Debbie Franke Photography
for Missouri Baptist University