Unveiling Noguchi's 'Lunar' and Unpacking the U-Haul Store (nee Magic Chef Headquarters)

In 2016 the only extant "Lunar" installation by Isamu Noguchi was revealed in newly restored condition, hovering incongruously over pallets of cardboard boxes in a St. Louis U-Haul Company retail space. Originally designed for the lobby of the American Stove Company (soon-to-be rechristened Magic Chef) headquarters, the ceiling installation was a primary feature in the notable five-story building designed by the important modernist Harris Armstrong and completed in 1947. The company left the building a mere nine years later to be purchased and adversely modified by the Teamsters Joint Council 13 and, after a decade-long abandonment, U-Haul’s also detrimental tenure starting in 1977. Erasures included the removal of a dynamic lobby stair complementing Noguchi’s “illuminated sculpture” which was itself entombed above a perfunctory suspended ceiling. Most of the stone-paneled envelope and once-innovative glazing systems were concealed behind a billboard-like cladding or, at ground level, removed altogether to accommodate loading doors. Thus, an important example in St. Louis’s modern architectural lineage was mostly forgotten. Though selective, the recent exhumation of the "Lunar" ceiling appears to forecast additional positive actions towards recovering Armstrong’s design by the corporation that lately has been touting various adaptive-reuse efforts nationally. This paper investigates the many layers, physical and historical, of the building which should be considered an important part of the city’s built heritage. The rediscovery of Noguchi’s installation is potentially a catalyst to removal of the other overlays that, perhaps, might be recast as fortuitously providing protection to the building fabric through decades of neglect.