(Charleston). Completed in 1854, the Farmers\u2019 and Exchange Bank is among the finest examples of the Moorish-revival style in the United States. It was one of several bank buildings designed by the architectural firm of Jones and Lee in the mid-1850s as Charleston\u2019s financial district expanded northward up East Bay Street. Whereas Charleston banking institutions had traditionally favored conservatively styled buildings, the directors of the Farmers\u2019 and Exchange Bank made a radical departure in introducing the city to the most flamboyant of the nineteenth-century exotic revivals.<\/p>\n
The bank was designed by the architect Francis D. Lee, who described it as \u201cSaracenic\u201d in style. The two-story facade is arranged in a three-bay format and clad in mottled New Jersey and Connecticut brownstone. Its exuberant ornamentation includes rounded horseshoe arches and Eastern-inspired decorative motifs. The mass of the cornice is formed by muquarnas, or honeycomb vaulting, a common feature in Islamic architecture. On the interior a paved vestibule leads to the main banking room. This opulent space is twenty-one feet wide and nearly fifty feet in length and features arcaded walls, elaborate plaster ornamentation, and a coffered ceiling and skylight.<\/p>\n
In a city known for its traditional architecture, the Farmers\u2019 and Exchange Bank is a bold and striking anomaly. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1973. It remains in private ownership.<\/p>\n
Lane, Mills. Architecture of the Old South: South Carolina. <\/em>Savannah, Ga.: Beehive, 1984.<\/p>\n Poston, Jonathan H. The Buildings of Charleston: A Guide to the City\u2019s Architecture. <\/em>Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.<\/p>\n Severens, Kenneth. Charleston Antebellum Architecture and Civic Destiny. <\/em>Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Charleston). Completed in 1854, the Farmers\u2019 and Exchange Bank is among the finest examples of the Moorish-revival style in the United States. It was one of several bank buildings designed by the architectural firm of Jones and Lee in the mid-1850s as Charleston\u2019s financial district expanded northward up East Bay Street. Whereas Charleston banking institutions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":18443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-6586","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-architecture","ecms-business-and-industry","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-f","ecms-lowcountry","ecms-the-antebellum-south-1816-1860"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n