March 2025.
The Bushnell Building is perhaps Springfield’s most exuberant work of commercial architecture. It fuses Romanesque Revival expression and fenestration with Beaux-Arts ornament, and its tall, square facade dominates the stretch of Main Street that it sits on.
The Bushnell Building is located at 14 East Main Street in downtown Springfield, Ohio. It is bordered by small Tudor Revival commercial buildings to the north, Main Street and City Hall to the south, the Springfield Federal Savings & Loan Association Building to the east, and Fountain Avenue and Hull Plaza to the west.
History
Historic photo/rendering of the Bushnell Building. Note the original storefront. (Bushnell Building website)
The Bushnell Building was commissioned by its namesake, Asa Bushnell, who operated a successful farm machinery business. He admired the architecture of Henry Hobson Richardson and commissioned Richardson’s successor firm, Shepley, Rutan, & Coolidge, in the early 1890s. That firm had begun to depart from Richardson’s eponymous style, as is evident by the classical ornamentation on the Bushnell Building. Its construction was completed in 1893.
After it was built, the first floor housed the First National Bank of Springfield and the Kinnane Bros. Department Store, while the fifth floor was the original home of Springfield’s Freemasons. The remainder was used as office space. The west-facing portion of the Bushnell Building was an addition and was built in 1903. The most notable tenant was Harry Toulmin, who was an attorney that filed the patents for the Wright Brothers’ plane.
The Home Store moved into the Kinnane Bros. space in 1914, and the entire building was converted to a department store for that tenant’s use in 1928. It was purchased by the Edward Wren Company in 1939, which became a very successful and well-known tenant during the mid-century era.
The Bushnell Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, along with its western neighbors, but it was fully vacant by 1987. It was purchased in 1993 and restored in an effort to revitalize downtown Springfield. These efforts seem to have worked, since the building houses various tenants today. Interestingly, it is only one of ten buildings listed on the NRHP that is LEED Platinum, and it is the oldest and largest of them all. This involved a lot of systems work by Woolpert.
Photos
Okay, if you ever needed a visual aid as to why lighting matters in photography, compare these almost identical shots taken a week apart:
See how much the details pop when they’re in direct sunlight? I understand the want for a uniform, diffuse light across a photo, but I am always in the camp of sunny weather.
Note here how the fenestration is organized:
The facade is divided into three both horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, the middle three bays differ from the eastern and western ones, and the building is expressed in the typical Gilded Age “base, shaft, capital” manner vertically. If the original storefront was intact, this would be even more apparent.
Detail of the central vaulted windows:
The asymmetrical composition here was a bit of an accident, but I think the final product is interesting. All the various textures are visible here. I spy egg-and-dart, bead-and-reel, and various vegetal designs. Also note the exuberant swag across the spandrel.
In between the three windows are two inset medallions with an elaborate wreath surrounding them. The eastern one reads “1893.”
The western one has an inscribed “ASB,” for Asa S. Bushnell:
I just noticed that the masonry is Roman brick, a favorite of Frank Lloyd Wright’s. That’s why I love these detail shots on Victorian-era buildings--they always bring out something I would otherwise miss.
Here’s a nicely composed shot of the fourth floor’s square window:
I like this loggia-esque row of arched windows on the fifth floor, a feature almost certainly borrowed from Renaissance architecture:
Wow, I really can’t get enough of that cornice:
Note how the jutting lower portion actually sits below the roofline, and the top is crowned by anthemia. In my opinion, this move is difficult to pull off, but I think the Bushnell Building is a successful example.
Let’s move around to the west facade of the building. Unfortunately, this portion is less intact and unrestored. I’m also varying which day’s pictures I use because there was a nasty shadow on the sunnier day.
The original base is more or less intact, but the cornice has been removed and new windows have been added. This portion is smaller and less elaborate in its details.
Each entrance has a lintel above supported by corbels, and a stone tablet reads “BVSHNELL BVILDING.” to the south…
…and “AD 1903” to the north.
The pilasters and smooth ashlar seem almost Postmodern for some reason, but the rest of the detail is pretty literal and orthodox.
These medallions also read “AD 1903.” I liked the composition of this view the best:
It was harder to get a straight-on view of these details since the street was narrower, and I didn’t have a park across the street to stand in like the south side.
These festoons below the fourth floor’s windows are ever so slightly different than the ones out front:
The third floor’s are inscribed with a “B” medallion:
Stretching my neck a bit…here’s the vaulted windows at the top:
Over by the courthouse, I could see the entire breadth of the L-shaped building. The different sections are very striking:
Naturally, Gilded Age architects only decorated the areas of the facade meant to be viewed from the street, so the parts that face an alley/other buildings were devoid of ornamentation and only shared similar massing and fenestration. Note the Home Store ghost sign on the west side of the building.
I’m glad the south facade has been lovingly restored, and an old building being environmentally friendly is always great. The west side just deserves the same treatment.
Sources:
https://www.thebushnellbuilding.com/history
https://www.westcotthouse.org/gps/downtown/bushnell-building#load
https://woolpert.com/news/videos/historically-modern-springfield-ohios-bushnell-building//
https://www.hubspringfield.com/features/bushnell-building-lagos-081921.aspx
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