Jewel Box

Jewel Box — William C. E. Becker — St. Louis, MO — 1936

The Jewel Box solved the greenhouse's oldest enemy: hail. A 1928 storm that destroyed $50,000 of glass at Shaw's Garden made another glass roof a liability. City engineer William Becker's answer was to move all the glazing to the vertical plane, covering horizontal surfaces with roofing instead. The ornamental limestone entry is what the city thought a conservatory should look like. The steel-and-glass tower behind it is what Becker actually built.