Louis C. Spiering

[2][3] After two semesters studying architecture at the Berlin Royal School of Technology, he returned stateside to take up a position with Chicago architect William A.

[3] Along the way, he won a prize in sculpture at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and he studied in the atelier of Noel-Marcel Lambert, the architect in charge of restoration at the Palace of Versailles.

[3] Although the Beaux-Arts style came to signify a type of neoclassicalism in architecture, a critic was later to observe of Spiering that what he gained from his Paris training was actually a "freedom to design in whatever format he thought appropriate to the circumstances.

[2] For the succeeding eighteen months, Spiering worked on a wide range of elements for the fair, including the general layout of the grounds and specific buildings such as the Palais du Costume, the wireless telegraph tower, the express office, the horticulture building, and the restaurant pavilions and colonnades on Art Hill.

[3] He also set up a design studio in the then-new architecture program at the Washington University in St. Louis and ran evening classes for working draftspeople.