Crosley Tower and Rieveschl Hall

The University of Cincinnati is as much a stranger to architectural clashes among its sprawling campus as it is to the names of alumnus industry giants splashed across those same buildings (which is to say, not at all). Standing in stark contrast and close proximity are two of the buildings I’d like to present today for different reasons. Crosley Tower and Rieveschl Hall are both named after people who had a large impact on the world we live in today either directly or indirectly.

The Brutalist Crosley Tower’s namesake is Powel Crosley Jr, an avid inventor and pioneer in the industrial space, who was interested in the workings of automobiles from a young age. Crosley went on to fail repeatedly at car manufacturing but eventually succeeded with a slight change in plans to produce automobile accessories in 1916 when he co-founded the American Automobile Accessory Company with Ira J. Cooper. Sales picked up tremendously allowing him to diversify into other consumer products like radios and home appliances and his novel “Money back guarantee” set the precedent for policies of the same name today.

While many aren’t aware of the automotive start of the Crosley legacy, it is certainly secured in radio. Stuck between the requests of his son for a radio and the price of even a toy radio from his local department store, Crosley set out to build his own and upon completion, realized the demand for an affordable radio for the masses. Crosley introduced the “Harko” in 1921 at less than 10% of its nearest competitor, an affordable gateway to the luxuries of wireless sound transmission for the American masses and an instant hit. Demand for consumer radios was so high at the time that after moving to a larger facility and continued expansions, The Crosley Radio Corporation was the largest radio manufacturer in the world by 1925.

Powel Crosley Jr was a leader in many industries with a long list of groundbreaking decisions to his name, from the aforementioned to radio broadcasting (ensuring increased demand for his expanding supply of radios), to consumer appliances with the Shelvador (the first refrigerator to introduce shelves in the door), to owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team (and the first to broadcast play-by-play coverage of scheduled games), to aircraft manufacturing with the Moonbeam and Flea models, and finally fulfilling his original passion of producing affordable automobiles with the Transferable and CC which got thirty to fifty miles to the gallon (and the first American carmaker to put disc brakes on all of its models).

The long and storied legacy of Crosley Tower is coming to a close as soon as 2025 as the University of Cincinnati seeks to demolish the second largest continuous pour concrete structure in the United States (second only to the Hoover Dam) and replace it with something new but personally I can’t think of a building style that represents its namesake better. Crosley Tower is viewable from almost anywhere on the campus, rising high above its contemporaries, a beacon that has outlasted many around it since its completion in 1969, and it demands attention not through beauty but through pure size. I truly can’t find a better metaphor for someone like Powel Crosley Jr., a reminder from those who couldn’t take 10 steps without seeing a Crosley Radio or hood ornament, to those now who can’t take 10 steps without glimpsing Crosley Tower piercing the skyline.

Rieveschl Hall is certainly an unassuming building compared to its giant counterpart and acts as the campuses life sciences building. The comparison seems apt in representing its namesake George Rieveschl, a name some may be familiar with only from the announcement of his death in 2007 but who certainly left his mark on the modern world.

Born in Arlington Heights, Ohio in 1916 and earning his PhD in chemistry at the University of Cincinnati, little is known about George Rieveschl in contrast to the hall’s neighbor but his legacy lives on in the hearts of allergy sufferers everywhere for leading a research program in antihistamines and licensing the patent for diphenhydramine, the chemical compound that would eventually most commonly be known as Benadryl.

The complimented stylings between the structures serves to highlight the differences between a high flying industrialist and a little celebrated chemist, but whether you enjoy listening to the game while you drive or have gotten medicinal relief from seasonal allergies, both have affected our daily life in undeniable ways and I can hardly imagine one without the other.