Repurposed brutalism in a Bozeman bank: how the tables turn!

Despite some glum predictions on the long-term economic health of college towns, most of the ones that harbor flagship universities still look pretty vibrant, at least if Bozeman, home of Montana State University (largest university in the state), is any example.  As recently as 1970, Bozeman was a fairly obscure town that hosted the state’s land-grant agriculture college, with a population below 20,000.  Today, Bozeman today exceeds 55,000 people (Montana’s fourth-largest city) and routinely enters national rankings for “best places to retire”.  But Bozeman wasn’t even a major player within this sparsely populated state until recently.  Departing westward along Interstate 90 from Billings (Montana’s largest city), most of the signs advertise Butte as the next major community, even though Butte is a good 85 miles further west beyond Bozeman.  And though Butte was a major mining center before Bozeman was much more than a twinkle in anyone’s eye, today Bozeman has nearly twice the population of Butte, yet the interstate signage barely gives Bozeman a mention until travelers are in the thick of the greater Bozeman metro (population 118,000).  The signs keep announcing “Butte” as the next major city.  Bozeman, filled with the can-do entrepreneurial spirit and refined retail typical of quirky collegial communities, hosts a vibrant downtown that is offering what I’d venture is among the first: repurposed brutalism!

I’ll confess that I cannot confirm that’s what is happening here, but if I apply my architectural forensics against what I know of urban redevelopment, it’s a safe guess.  Bozeman’s Main Street boasts a resolutely thriving eight-block commercial corridor, featuring a combination of local restaurants/boutiques and national chains that lean heavily toward the sporty and affluent (lululemon, Athleta, Fjällräven).

And, elsewhere down the road, Bozeman hosts Montana’s one and only Whole Foods Market: for what it’s worth, a predictable harbinger of bourgeois bohemian sensibilities.  So it should come as no surprise that the less lucrative façades and structure are facing redevelopment.  Hence, repurposed brutalism is underway.  Stepping back a bit further reveals the context of this structure with the old, decayed “First Bank of Bozeman” sign, which contractors must have unearthed, because a bank with that name hasn’t existed for years.

So what exactly happened here?  A visit to some of the oldest archived Bozeman photos of Google Street View, dating all the way back to May 2009, reveal that this odd little building, with its alabaster hue and massive, recessed “portal” windows, was merely a portion of a large regional branch to Minneapolis-based US Bancorp; the adjacent, five-story building to the right (at the street corner) hosted many more offices, but the street level to the taller neighbor was little more than an impenetrable void.  I’m going to surmise that the one-story annex served as the primary entrance and, most likely, hosted the majority of the day-to-day banking services.  And back in 2009, as the Street View shows, both the tall corner building and its squat neighbor abided by a similar modernist aesthetic.  Fast forward to August 2022, and US Bancorp had decided to “update” the façade to the taller building, essentially reverting it back to its roots by stripping away the modernist cladding.

For the last few years, the corner building has flaunted its proud birthday suit: a brick veneer for the upper three floors and most likely limestone for the lower two, all while unearthing the bank’s original name—“THE NATIONAL”—at the second-floor cornice.  Like most corner bank buildings in historic town centers, the building is thick and secure, no doubt deliberately designed to fend off against the bandits and marauders of Montana’s early statehood days.  As older bank buildings go, however, this one still had more inviting fenestration than most.  Many corner banks in old downtowns were neoclassical and windowless back in the day; a century later, they were brutalist and windowless.  With this repurposed brutalism in Bozeman, US Bancorp ultimately decided the neighboring corner property was a more attractive (and roomier) space to consolidate their operations.  Meanwhile, the squat neighbor that is the focus of this blog most likely dates from the 1960s or early 70s; not exactly a banner era for beautiful bank architecture.

Yet somehow, against all odds, now that US Bancorp has re-consolidated operations in the larger, older, bigger, conventionally prettier corner building, the one story is undergoing a complete reinvention…but NOT a complete demolition.

Girders are holding it together, even though it appears that construction teams have taken down all the structure beyond the frontmost 36 inches.  Is this what some urbanists would label a façadectomy?  It sure looks like that’s what’s happening here.

The local Bozeman Daily Chronicle provided a capsule summary of the initiative back in June 2024, shortly after the reopening of the corner property.  THE FIRST NATIONAL bank building dates from the 1870s, making it the oldest surviving brick property in Bozeman.  Since the aged building didn’t exactly align with contemporary banking or office needs, the contractors had to salvage the façade while reconstructing a brand-new five story shell behind it.  In this same article, the spokesperson for US Bancorp indicated forthcoming plans to renovate the low-lying structure in question here.  And, I suspect, that’s the nature of the repurposed brutalism that I encountered on a rainy, chilly day in May in downtown Bozeman.

Notice the meticulous care with which the contractors have both cordoned off the façade and how they are deploying a pneumatic lift to perform precision work on that ancient “First Bank of Bozeman” sign.  If the owners were demolishing this façade, wouldn’t they have done so by now? The reality, as I can infer, is that Bozeman’s clout has grown along with its population, and the city’s main street now represents one of the highest-value commercial corridors in all of Montana.  Bearing this in mind, the one-story bank structure that broke ground circa 1970 (when real estate in Bozeman was cheap) is no longer the highest and best use at that parcel, either for US Bancorp—if the company chooses to retain this property—or for whatever owner comes next.

If the Daily Chronicle article is any indication, US Bancorp no longer has need for a squat building on Main Street, but, instead of selling it, the firm chose to redevelop it into a more lucrative five stories: the maximum height (per most municipal building codes) by which frame construction is still permissible, and also a reasonable height so it won’t look out of scale on a commercial corridor that can’t yet justify lots of mid-rises (approximately eight stories or higher).  However, rather than demolish the low-slung bank building, the development team affiliated with US Bancorp has determined that the façade isn’t quite as hated as it might have been twenty years ago.  Thus, it is opting for repurposed brutalism, retaining the groovy space-opera frontage, which will eventually serve as the primary entrance for a larger structure, which, if all goes according to plan, will host offices, apartments, and retail on that funky first floor.

Is this Bozeman initiative a sign that repurposed brutalism is the new normal?  It’s hard to dispute that brutalism’s bulk, its impenetrability, its Lucasfilm-spacecraft sensibilities made it look like the design of the future when it first emerged in the early 1970s, but the cold austerity didn’t elicit a lingering fondness.  The subsequent era of the personal computer only served to abrogate the public’s tendency to equate “ultramodern” with “big”.  Has brutalist architecture—a steadfastly despised aesthetic within a few years after it fell out of favor (the mid 1980s)—become futuristic-looking, or even cool, all over again?  Let’s not go that far.  US Bancorp is assuming a risk, because the delicate process of preserving this façade in Bozeman while shaving off the back 95% is more expensive than simply demolishing the whole thing.  But someone involved in this effort convinced the corporation’s real estate development wing that a façade of repurposed brutalism could add value, compared to whatever contemporary aesthetic an architect might otherwise deploy…and industrial-chic 2020s architecture is already omnipresent in a fast-growing small city like Bozeman, as a quick drive further down I-90 reveals.  Tearing down that brutalist façade would rob the city of one of its most distinctive buildings.

Within a year or two, the blocky heft of that alabaster first floor—including (perhaps) the long-defunct First Bank of Bozeman’s nostalgic logo—is likely to embellish whatever new building sprouts up four additional floors above.  And, though the stylistic language probably won’t exactly match, the repurposed brutalism will position itself as the entryway like a wide 1970s necktie…like Carly Simon’s “scarf it was apricot”.  But, brutalism, have you ever been so vain to think the song was about you?