Tennessee Supreme Court - Nashville TN

City:: Nashville, TN
Site Type:: Civic Facilities, Courthouses (State & Local)
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
Started:: 1937
Completed:: 1938
Designer:: Joseph Holman and Thomas Marr
Contractor:: Rock City Construction Company
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Marked:: Yes
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Public Works Administration (PWA) paid for construction of Tennessee’s Supreme Court building in 1937-38. The state’s highest court had not previously had its own building, having been housed in the state capitol. The structure also contains the….

Short and Stanley-Brown recorded in their 1939 report on PWA projects that:

“Before the erection of this building the supreme court was housed in the State capitol and its offices were located in rented quarters in various parts of the city. The new structure houses the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Tennessee Court of Appeals, the legal department of the State government, the attorney general and his staff, and an extensive library.

The building is 140 by 87 feet over all and four stories in height. It is fireproof throughout and the exterior walls are faced with marble backed up with brick and tile. The basement contains a garage connected directly with the upper floors by elevators. The structure was completed in April 1938 at a construction cost of $629,267 and a project cost of $654,104.”

Source notes

C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown, Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939.

Site originally submitted by Shaina Potts on January 16, 2012.
Additional contributions by Richard Walker.