Color us crazy about this new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum!
“Coloring STL,” on view from Aug. 20 to May 5, 2024, offers visitors the rare opportunity to channel their imagination and creativity by coloring the gallery walls with stacks and stacks of dry-erase markers at the ready.
The walls of the 6,000-square-foot special exhibition are adorned with larger-than-life illustrations of more than 50 St. Louis buildings and structures, highlighting the region’s architectural past and present.
“We have everything from the extraordinary buildings in the city – the famous landmarks, the must-see places – down to the very homes we live in. People are going to see local St. Louis housing styles and learn some stories about why houses look the way they do here compared to anywhere else,” said public historian Andrew Wanko, the exhibit’s content lead. “Anybody who drives around for an hour in St. louis is going to be amazed by some incredible architecture, but instead of a traditional show, we wanted to find a better way to get people excited and curious about them.”
Enter the interactive “marker stations,” which are installed adjacent to the gallery walls. Each station includes 16 different colors of dry-erase markers and erasers, as well as stepstools to reach higher spots such as the dome of the Cathedral Basilica or the neon signs that pierce the St. Louis skyline.
“It’s so fun to get to color on the walls of a history museum – that’s not something many people can say they’ve done,” Wanko said, but he also noted the scope of the exhibit extends even further. “We are looking more deeply into St. Louis architecture and what makes St. Louis unique.”
Featured among the colorable iconic landmarks such as Bevo Mill, City Museum, the “Flying Saucer,” Soulard Market and the Tower Grove Park pavilions are residential homes found in area neighborhoods, showing the scope of St. Louis architecture, from shape, style, size and era.
“We’re surrounded by fascinating details all the time…if you slow down and take a look at things around you, you’ll notice them,” Wanko said. “We really hope this will be a for people to have conversation, to talk about the buildings they love, the type of house they grew up in and to find deeper connections to the community.”
For instance, ever wonder about all that stained glass found in even the smallest shotgun-style homes around town?
“We’ve learned that we had this huge local manufacturing industry, all these companies making these windows…and people ordered them by mail catalog!” Wanko explained. “That’s where we hope to catch people’s attention – with those things they’ve been wondering about their homes and the fact that we’re going to answer some of those questions.”
In the center of gallery is a showcase of what Wanko calls “the St. Louis you can’t see anymore,” including a picture slideshow of the city’s yesteryears and reproductions of the initial architectural renderings of iconic places like the Fox Theatre.
There is also a display of more than 60 artifacts from notable local structures, spanning from the St. Louis riverfront heydays in the 1850s to the midcentury modern shopping malls of the 1960s.
One of the highlights is a set of towering etched-glass double doors from the Merchants Exchange Building, which functioned as a stock exchange of sorts for the riverfront in the mid-1800s. Wanko notes the Merchant Exchange’s two-story hall was the largest unbroken interior space in the country in 1875. It drew 6,000 people when it hosted the 1876 Democratic National Convention. The building was demolished in the late 1950s and part of its location is now occupied by the Hyatt Regency at the Arch (formerly the Adam’s Mark Hotel).
Throughout the exhibit, “there are St. Louis buildings having their story told in some way,” according to Wanko.
“What do we lose when buildings are lost?” he said, pointing to artifacts saved from the demolition of the old Northland Shopping Center in Jennings, which opened in the early 1950s and was anchored by a Famous-Barr department store. “People bought homes just to be near this… and half a century later, the wrecking balls came.”
“Coloring STL” is free and open to the public. For its opening weekend, the Missouri History Museum has special activities planned for Saturday, Aug. 20, and Sunday, Aug. 21. For more information, visit the museum’s official “Coloring STL” exhibit page.
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