Wainwright Building

St. Louis, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

Wheelchair access: Accessible

From OpenStreetMap — confirm before travelling

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The Wainwright Building, a ten-story terra cotta office structure completed in 1890–1891 by the Chicago School architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, stands at 709 Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis. Built for local brewer and financier Ellis Wainwright, it is widely regarded as one of the first aesthetically fully realized early skyscrapers—Frank Lloyd Wright praised it as "the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as Architecture." The National Register of Historic Places describes it as "a highly influential prototype of the modern office building." Listed as both a National Historic Landmark and a Landmark of St. Louis, the Wainwright Building was later recognized by PBS's *10 That Changed America* as one of the ten buildings that transformed the nation, celebrated for being "the first skyscraper that truly looked the part" and for establishing Sullivan as the "Father of Skyscrapers."