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Founded in 1838, Second Presbyterian Church started in a Greek Revival building at 5th & Walnut, and moved in 1867 to a Gothic Revival one in fashionable Lucas Place, now 17th and Locust. Their third building, here in the West End, was another stylistic departure. Its design derives from the 1874-1877 Trinity Church on Copley Square in Boston, which was for a time the most popular building in America. H.H. Richardson based the dramatic octagonal tower at the crossing of the church on the old cathedral at Salamanca in Spain, dating from the twelfth century. Richardson, the most influential architect of his era, designed three houses in St. Louis, and his daughter Julia married St. Louisan George Shepley. Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, Richardson’s successor firm, designed the chapel of the new Second Presbyterian complex in 1896.
Three years after the construction of the Chapel, the German immigrant Theodore Link (1850-1923) was asked to design the main church. Trained in Heidelberg and Paris, Link had worked in 1875 as a draftsman on the design of Forest Park. He became famous for his 1891 design for St. Louis’s Union Station, which identified him with the muscular, rock-faced Romanesque style Richardson had popularized. His extensive later practice included buildings in many other styles, including the Arts & Crafts Wednesday Club (now The Learning Center) across the street, the Ionic St. John’s Methodist Church on Kingshighway (opposite the former home of Second Baptist Church, whose replacement is another past venue of the Chamber Chorus), and the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson.
Kurt Landberg’s renovation in 1986-87 adjusted the lighting and wall colors of the interior to highlight the glass, one of the artistic glories of St. Louis. Eleven of the windows are by the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and several are signed. The first six were installed in 1900, with the remainder added into the 1920s. They exhibit all the hallmarks of his style, including chunky or swirling surfaces, irregularities of color employed as part of the design, and plating of two or three layers of glass for depth and richness. A few non-Tiffany windows can be seen near the entry. The chapel, through the doors to the left, was remodeled when LaBeaume & Klein added the large education wing around it in 1931. This was the setting chosen to record the Chamber Chorus's third compact disc, A Chamber Christmas, since it has an extraordinarily live acoustic and is isolated from extraneous noise by a series of ‘buffer’ rooms.
Although the Chamber Chorus rehearsed here for a season in the late 1980s, and recorded the compact disc of Christmas carols in the chapel, the group has only performed one concert in the church, on October 6, 1996.
Notes by Esley Hamilton and Philip Barnes