Nix Professional Building

skyscraper
art-deco
TX
San Antonio

About the Nix Professional Building in San Antonio
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The Nix Professional Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Henry T. Phelps, and built in 1930, for a reported $1.50 million dollars, in San Antonio, TX.

Nix Professional Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The Nix Professional Building is also known, or has been known as, Nix Hospital, or Nix Medical Center.

Its precise street address is 414 Navarro Street, San Antonio, TX. You can also find it on the map here.

Architect and team

Henry T. Phelps 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 Joseph Madison Nix as the Main Developer.

Architectural Style

The Nix Professional Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The Nix Professional Building was completed in 1930, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The Nix Professional Building reaches an architectural height of 276ft (84m). It has a total of 24 floors, 23 above ground and 1 basements. In total, it has a built-up area of 310,000 sqf (28,800m²) offering 278,839 sqf (25,905m²) of usable space.

In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 49 spots available, which roughly equals 2 spots per floor (above ground), or one parking spot per every 5,694 sqf (529m²) of usable space.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1930, the Nix Professional Building has mainly been used as Medical space.

About the hospital

With 208 beds throughout its 23 floors, the hospital is privately funded.

Materials & Structure

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features limestone plates with a pink granite plinth at the base of three floors of the building, polychrome terracotta spandrels under the windows, and above the access door, continuing with tawny brick on the rest of the facade.

The main entrance, flanked by two large lanterns, is protected by a metal canopy on which a semicircular skylight is found.

Other materials found at the Nix Professional Building include, marble, found on the black and white floors in the lobby and in light cream colors, as well as pink-veined plaques, on the walls, and bronze, used for the elevator doors with a design carved into the metal and in decorative details.