Mark C. Steinberg Hall

Mark C. Steinberg Hall was begun in 1959 and completed in 1960.

Steinberg Hall has housed the College of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, and the College & Graduate School of Art. Founded in 1881, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (formerly the Washington University Gallery of Art) was located in Steinberg Hall from 1960 to 2006.


Etta Eiseman Steinberg and Mark C. Steinberg

The donor of the building was Etta Eiseman Steinberg who gave the building in memory of her husband, Mark C. Steinberg.

Mr. Steinberg was a native St. Louisan and began work as an office boy at a brokerage firm. He was soon able to start Mark C. Steinberg & Company, which became the largest firm of its kind in St. Louis, at which he remained until his death in 1951. He was also the second largest shareholder of United Railways Company, which eventually evolved into Bi-State Transit Agency (now Metro).

He was president of the Sanjanet Apartment Hotel Company, and chairman of the Board of Fulton Iron Works and the Medart Company, as well as a member of the board of directors of a number of other companies, including Velvet Freeze. He was interested in sports, and therefore gave to several athletic associations in St. Louis.

He also built the Steinberg wing of Jewish Hospital. His wife was impressed by the Central Park skating rink in New York City, so she gave $600,000 toward the $1 million skating rink in Forest Park in St. Louis, known as Steinberg Skating Rink. Mrs. Steinberg was a graduate of Mary Institute and continued her husband’s philanthropy.