Porteous, Mitchell and Braun Company Building, historic building in Portland, Maine, USA
The Porteous, Mitchell and Braun Company Building is a historic department store on Congress Street in Portland, Maine, now serving as the main campus for Maine College of Art. The five-story structure with a steel frame displays Renaissance-style features, with a facade of brick and cream-colored terra cotta, triple-paned window sections on middle floors, and decorative cornicing along the top.
The building was constructed in 1904 by architect Penn Varney from Massachusetts for dry goods store Watson, Miller & Company. After purchase by Porteous, Mitchell and Braun in 1906, it was doubled in size in 1911 with architect George Burnham's redesign, later expanded toward Free Street, and operated until 1991 as the city's largest department store.
The building takes its name from the department store that defined it for over eight decades and became a center of shopping life in Portland. Today you can see in the large windows and solid structure the traces of that era when it served as a gathering place for the city.
The building sits in Portland's Arts District between Oak and Brown Streets and is easily accessible from Congress Street today. The area is walkable and offers many other historic structures and art venues nearby to explore.
After closing in 1991, the building fell into storage use and seemed to lose its purpose before Maine College of Art saved it and transformed it into an active art campus. This rescue was so successful that the project received a preservation award in 2011, and the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
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