Life & Casualty Tower
Encyclopedia
The Life & Casualty Tower is a skyscraper
in Nashville, Tennessee
located at 401 Church Street. It stands 152.5 meters (409 ft) and has 30 floors. It was designed by Edwin Keeble, with structural engineering made by Ross Bryan Associates, and was finished in 1957. It was Nashville's first skyscraper and the tallest in Tennessee until 1965, when 100 North Main Street
in Memphis
surpassed it.
Exterior materials are limestone
, granite
, and bright green glass
windows. Intersecting curves and angles at the building's base focus attention on the entrance, which angles out to the corner of Church Street and 4th Avenue.
In the building's early days, the L&C sign at its apex functioned as a weather beacon
, changing color to indicate the weather forecast.
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
located at 401 Church Street. It stands 152.5 meters (409 ft) and has 30 floors. It was designed by Edwin Keeble, with structural engineering made by Ross Bryan Associates, and was finished in 1957. It was Nashville's first skyscraper and the tallest in Tennessee until 1965, when 100 North Main Street
100 North Main
100 North Main currently stands as the tallest building in Memphis, Tennessee. At 430 feet, it serves as 37 floors of office space. The building currently stands bordering Adams Street, North Second Street, and North Main.- History :...
in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
surpassed it.
Exterior materials are limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, and bright green glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
windows. Intersecting curves and angles at the building's base focus attention on the entrance, which angles out to the corner of Church Street and 4th Avenue.
In the building's early days, the L&C sign at its apex functioned as a weather beacon
Weather beacon
A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember....
, changing color to indicate the weather forecast.