Civil Courts Building
The history
10 North Tucker Boulevard, 1930, Klipstein & Rathmann — a fourteen-storey tower with a Greek temple set on top of it and, above that, a stepped pyramid copied from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders, with two cast aluminium griffins on the peak. It lines up dead centre behind the Arch in every photograph taken from the Illinois side. Still the working courthouse of the 22nd Judicial Circuit.
In brief
The Civil Courts Building is a landmark court building used by the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri in St. Louis, Missouri. The building with its pyramid shaped roof is prominently featured in the center of photos of the Gateway Arch from the Illinois side as its location on the Memorial Plaza is lined up in the middle directly behind the Old Courthouse. The building was part of an $87 million bond issue ratified by voters in 1923 to build monumental buildings along the Memorial Plaza which also included Kiel Auditorium and the Municipal Services Building. The Plaza and the buildings were part of St. Louis's City Beautiful plan. It replaced the Old Courthouse as the city's court building and its construction prompted the descendants of the founding father Auguste Chouteau to unsuccessfully sue the city to get the Old Courthouse back since the stipulation was that it was to always
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