PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2022

The top pick, Peoria Civic Center

T he verdict is in: If Peoria had a golden age of architecture and grand ambition, it was well more than a century ago. Recently Peoria Magazine asked five local architects to choose their personal top 10 of architecturally significant buildings in Illinois. That all-star cast/jury — Debbie Baker of Architectural Design Group; Paul Kouri of Farnsworth Group; Anthony Corso, an urban design and planning consultant and former chief innovation officer for the city of Peoria; Wil Helmick of PCM+Design Architects; and the guy who put this team together, Mark Misselhorn, chairman of the Downtown Advisory Commission following a long career at apaceDesign and Core Construction Services – ultimately forwarded 45 structures for consideration. ‘WE DON'T BUILD BUILDINGS TO LAST 100 YEARS ANYMORE’ Westlake Hall, Bradley University

OSF HealthCare Mission Headquarters

416 Main Street

so complemented the historic and architecturally elaborate City Hall next door in what became something of the “mega-block” Downtown. The Philip Johnson-envisioned Civic Center – by then Johnson already had been named the first winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize — was followed by 416 Main (originally the Peoria Life Insurance building, later First National Bank, then Commerce Bank), Madison Theatre, Bradley University’s Westlake Hall, and OSF HealthCare Mission Headquarters (formerly the Block & Kuhl building). Rounding out the list were Peoria City Hall, Obed & Isaac’s Microbrewery (original ly the 2nd Presbyterian Church), the Frances W. Little House onMoss Avenue, the Rock Island Depot/ River Station and St. Mary’s Cathedral. Honorable mentions went to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and theMotherhouse. All but theMotherhouse, the novitiate for the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis outside Germantown Hills, are in the city of Peoria. The youngest building clocked in at 40, the oldest at 133, with an average age of 111 years. “We don’t build buildings to last 100 years anymore,” said Helmick.

“That’s what’s sad,” said Baker. “Our priorities are different,” said Corso. THERE IS A SENSE OF SOMETHING HAVING BEEN LOST ALONG THE WAY This kind of exercise is a subjective one, of course – an eye-of-the-beholder thing — so this is by no means the def initive list. It represents the opinions of five professionals in the field. Others may have different points of view. Even with this group, there was some second-guessing upon reflection. Certainly, central Illinois has its share of modern, attractive structures. But there are a lot of relatively unadorned, cookie-cutter boxes and rectangles being constructed in central Illinois, too, and there certainly is a sense in some quarters of something having been lost along the way from the days when Peoria not only bragged an array of accomplished homegrown architects spreading their creative wings but attracted the likes of Frank LloydWright, W.W. Boyington (Chicago’s Water Tower), Henry Ives Cobb and Philip Johnson to town.

— Wil Helmick

The votes were totaled and the clear frontrunner was the Peoria Civic Center, which opened in 1982 — my how time flies — with its “necklace” of glass that

OCTOBER 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE 31