Mapes Hotel

The Mapes Hotel is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by F.H.Slocombe, and built between 1946 and 1947 in Reno, NV.

The exact addresss of the building was 10 North Virginia Street, Reno, NV. However, you won't be able to find it there anymore, since it was demolished in 2000, 53 year after opening its doors to the public.

The Mapes Hotel is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Reno and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Art Deco style. Because of that, the Mapes Hotel was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

F.H.Slocombe was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Theodore P. Moorehead in charge of Structural Engineering.

The Mapes Hotel can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Mapes Hotel was completed in 1947, significantly after what could be considered the end of the Art-Deco movement. It was clearly inspired by the movement, but because it doesen't really fit into the movement's timeline it would be considered as a post-movement or neo-movement.

Especially during modern times, there are less imposed rules when it comes to design. Variety and experimentation are welcome, and architects are given the freedom to take inspiration from a wide range of sources.

Looking at the past for inspiration can be a great starting point for an architectural project, and something which F.H.Slocombe clearly took advantage of to design the Mapes Hotel. Architects may choose to look to the past for multiple reasons. It could be that they want the building to merge with an older surounding, give it the feeling of having been there for longer than it actualy has, personal preference or it might even be a requieremnt from the client.

The Mapes Hotel uses a frame structure made of reinforced concrete columns and beams.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade is a non-load bearing masonry facade. This type of facade became common during the period when buildings, especially taller ones, transitioned from load-bearing wall systems to frame structures.

Frame structures allowed facades to be independent from the building's frame, enabling the use of lighter materials and larger openings. However, it took some time for architects to incorporate these new posibilities into their designs, and so for a while they simply replicated the look and feel fo buildings people where used to seeing.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a 4x4, cream-colored terracotta tiles covering the first two floors and rough textured red brick columns situated between the windows on the upper levels.

Another material found at the Mapes Hotel is aluminum, used in moldings, window sahes and baseboards.