page_title: Hartington City Hall and Auditorium
section_title: Prairie School design
hierarchical_section_title: Hartington City Hall and Auditorium / Architecture / Prairie School design
caption_attribution_description: English: City auditorium, former city hall, in Hartington, Nebraska: central portion of south side of building. A building across the street precluded getting further back and thus photographing the entire auditorium from this angle.
context_page_description: The Hartington City Hall and Auditorium, also known as the Hartington Municipal Building, is a city-owned, brick-clad, 2-story center in Hartington, Nebraska. It was designed between 1921 and 1923 in the Prairie School style by architect William L. Steele.
  Prairie School architecture is rare, and this rural Nebraska specimen is particularly unusual for being designed and built in the 1920s, subsequent to the Prairie Style's rapid loss of popularity after 1914.
  The building originally housed city offices, a fire house, an armory, and an auditorium. It is currently used for events, meetings, sports, recreation, and social functions.
context_section_description: As designed by William L. Steele, the building exhibits primarily Prairie School attributes, but also includes Romanesque Revival elements such as semi-circular arches on many of the windows and doors. These Romanesque elements are not in harmony with the over-all Prairie thrust of the architecture. Architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson ascribes Steele's use of Romanesque elements to an “attempt to personalize the Prairie School idiom” that began with Steele's First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918), where he notes that the “two different geometries are not resolved.” Steele persisted with this approach, to the point that Wilson concludes that the “round headed opening became Steele's motif for public buildings.” 
  Prairie Style architecture was primarily originated by Frank Lloyd Wright, inspired by the ideas of Louis Sullivan, who served as mentor to Wright, Steele, and many other practitioners of the Prairie School. As developed by Wright, George Grant Elmslie, William Gray Purcell, Marion Mahony, Walter Burley Griffin, and others, the Prairie School of architecture rejected historical revival styles and was inspired by the flat terrain and horizon of the prairies of the Midwest. Prairie Style features crisp, rectilinear geometries with an emphasis on horizontal lines set off by occasional vertical counterpoints. Ornament should develop from the structure itself or express it rather than being added to it as an embellishment, and the architect should rely on construction materials honestly used as themselves, rather than imitating something else. A building's internal structure should determine its exterior and be clearly expressed on the outside, in keeping with Sullivan's famous motto of “form follows function”.
  The central bay of the south facade of the Hartington City Hall and Auditorium is highly effective Prairie School architecture (the nearly hidden north facade is similar). The bulk of the wall surface is simple running bond brickwork, forming a uniform ground for the interplay of horizontal and vertical lines. The stone coping at the roofline forms the highest horizontal line. Not far below is a horizontal band of triple corbelling that surrounds the building. This effect is created by projecting three courses of brick out farther than the wall below (as in a corbel), repeating it with three more courses of brick, and then repeating it again for the entire rest of the wall up to the copestone. Steele adds depth and interest to this band by varying the projection of each of the three brick courses by facade so that corners highlight one or another course (see photo below). This effective horizontal band is similar to but more sophisticated than what Steele used near the top of his noted First Congregational Church (Sioux City, 1916–1918). Additional horizontal lines derive from the original three bands of windows (particularly prior to more recent window alterations). These consistent horizontal lines are dramatically emphasized by the strong counterpoint of the six vertical piers. Yet even these vertical pilasters have horizontal elements in their capitals, consisting of three horizontal bands of projecting brick string courses (which echo the triple corbelling above) and the contrasting capitals of cast stone on top. Across the set of six vertical piers or pilasters along the auditorium, these elements create additional horizontal lines.
  In contrast, although the front facade uses some similar features, it is less integrated, with horizontal, vertical, and circular elements that are attractive, but that do not complement each other and are out of keeping with Prairie Style. In observing similar mixtures of Prairie with other styles, S.J. Klingensmith observed the contrasting styles introduce "tensions that are not completely resolved and indicate that Steele was not committed solidly to the style".
  In their evaluation, James D. Fagler and Joni Gilkerson not surprisingly note the many features in common between the Hartington City Hall and the Woodbury County Courthouse, on which Steele had e
caption: The central bay of the south facade displays many Prairie School features. It uses minimal applied ornament, relying instead on brickwork, bands of windows, and stone coping to provide strong horizontal lines and bold vertical counterpoints.
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