Cass Gilbert Gilbert was a conservative who believed architecture should reflect historic traditions and the established social order. His design of the new Supreme Court building (1935), with its classical lines and small size, contrasted sharply with the large federal buildings going up along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which he disliked. Heilbrun says "Gilbert's pioneering buildings injected vitality into skyscraper design, and his 'Gothic skyscraper,' epitomized by the Woolworth Building, profoundly influenced architects during the first decades of the twentieth century." Christen and Flanders note that his reputation among architectural critics went into eclipse during the age of modernism, but
Architecture of St. Louis by Cass Gilbert (1912). While the Old Post Office has been renovated, the St. Louis Public Library is slated for renovation as of 2010. In 1923 the city passed a $87 million bond issue for re-development of the Civic Plaza along the lines of the City Beautiful movement. This development resulted in some of St. Louis's major civic architecture: the Soldiers' Memorial, the Civil Courts Building, and Kiel Auditorium. Then into the 1940s and 1950s a certain subgenre of St. Louis modernism emerged, with the locally important Harris Armstrong, and a series of daring modern civic landmarks like Gyo Obata's