Citizen-Times Newspaper Building, Asheville

According to a postcard reproduced in “Asheville: A Postcard History” by Sue Greenberg and Jan Kahn, the Citizen-Times Newspaper Building was designed by Anthony Lord with Lockwood Greene from New York as consulting architect.

In 1930, The Citizen and The Times, two local newspapers, joined to form the Citizen-Times and the building probably dates from after this time.

The building is a relatively plain moderne building, a three-storey asymmetrical grey structure. The decoration comes from the simple raised bands near the roofline, top and bottom of the windows and to the sides of the name above the entrance.

The use of glass blocks to surround the conventional windows provides a nice visual contrast to the concrete facade. Glass blocks are also used as a vertical element in the square tower leading up to a flagpole projecting from the front of the building.

At the base of the flagpole there is a small relief panel depicting mountains in front of stylised sunburst and geometric clouds as if to prove that even plain buildings need some decoration.