Architecture Tours

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Saturday, Jul 18, 2026  3:30pm - 4:30pm

Location

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Details

The spare, streamlined exterior—faced in white Georgia marble with gray-pink Minnesota granite—is an example of “starved” or “stripped” classicism. During the Depression, architects were expected to express in their buildings the values of permanence, stability, and order—values that a classical style had traditionally embodied—but in forms streamlined to suggest progress and to lower production costs. Inside, however, cast aluminum doors and grillwork, as well as colored marble and stones on the floors and walls, follow the more decorative trend commonly known as Art Deco, which had developed in commercial interiors in the 1920s.In 1984 the post office building was listed officially on the National Register of Historic Places. A new main postal distribution center, however, was constructed near the Nashville airport in 1986. The Broadway office became a downtown branch, using only part of a single floor in the three-story building.