By Stephen Schreiber

One of the few widely shared sentiments about Amherst architecture is that the Bank of America building on the Town Common is lacking. Writing in The Amherst Current, Meg Gage observed:

“Don’t forget the most hideous building in town—or perhaps in the Valley: the Bank of America building that is 45 degrees out of whack with every other building in town, has those horrific square columns with no structural or artistic purpose…That is one building everyone agrees is a downtown catastrophe.”¹

Yet the building has not always been regarded as hideous. When it opened in 1968 as the Amherst Savings Bank, it was heralded as a bold reinterpretation of what a bank could be, especially when compared with the more traditional Georgian Revival bank building across Amity Street. It reflected the spirit of its era—out with the old, in with the new. Architectural historian Paul Norton wrote that its design, “by no means traditional for a bank, utilizes modern materials, particularly large areas of glass. Because of its easy access, it has an open and inviting appearance.”²

William F. Cann (1920–2002), the building’s architect, was a prominent mid-century designer and later president of the Bank Building & Equipment Corporation of America (BB&ECA) in St. Louis. From the late 1950s through the 1970s, Cann helped lead one of the nation’s most influential design-build firms, producing banks and commercial buildings that embodied postwar optimism, technological confidence, and corporate modernism. 

Cann’s architectural approach departed decisively from the classical imagery historically associated with financial institutions. Instead, he advanced a modernist language defined by structural expression, expansive glass, and flexible interior planning, reframing the bank as transparent, accessible, and efficient rather than monumental or ceremonial. 

The Amherst Savings Bank building exemplifies this philosophy while also revealing the tension between modernist ideals and a historic New England townscape. Its flat roof, geometric clarity, and restrained detailing contrast sharply with Amherst’s surrounding eighteenth- and nineteenth-century commercial buildings, dominated by brick construction and Colonial Revival architecture, including the Georgian Revival First National Bank directly across Amity Street.The building’s transparent banking hall and clearly expressed structural system communicated openness and operational efficiency, signaling a shift in how banks presented themselves to the public during the postwar era. 

The Bank of America building stands out as one of the few structures that attracts remarkably broad agreement in criticism of its appearance and relationship to its surroundings. At the same time, architectural historians and preservationists have increasingly reassessed buildings of this type as important regional expressions of postwar modernism and representative examples of Cann’s mature work.

The bank occupies an important place within a broader portfolio of projects demonstrating Cann’s range and ambition. His Jamaica Savings Bank branch in Elmhurst, Queens (1966–68), is among his best-known works, featuring a dramatic hyperbolic-paraboloid concrete roof spanning more than 100 feet and widely regarded as a landmark of expressive structural modernism. 

Other projects—including First Federal Savings and Loan buildings in Nampa, Idaho (1962), and Davenport, Iowa (1965), as well as a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge in La Plata, Maryland (1958)—illustrate the firm’s ability to extend a distinctly modern architectural identity across a wide range of commercial building types.

Across these projects, Cann consistently pursued a synthesis of architectural form, corporate identity, and industrialized construction. Whether designing roadside hospitality architecture, suburban bank branches, or urban financial institutions, his work sought to express innovation, efficiency, and optimism through modern design.

Today, the Bank of America building remains an enduring artifact of these overlapping histories—corporate modernism, postwar banking culture, and local resistance to architectural change. Whether viewed as an architectural misstep or appreciated as a significant example of mid-century modernism, it continues to illuminate the complex relationship between national design movements and local identity.

Stephen Schreiber is an architect and chair of the Department of Architecture at UMass Amherst. He was an elected Town Councilor in Amherst from 2018-2022.

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Sources 

Meg Gage, “A Civil Conversation, Part 3,” The Amherst Current, March 14, 2022. 

Paul Norton, Amherst: A Guide to Its Architecture (Amherst, MA: Amherst Historical Society, 1975), 38. 

Bank Building & Equipment Corporation of America, advertisements and promotional materials published in Bankers Magazine and related banking trade journals, 1950s–1970s; Bank Buildings in America (Washington, DC: Preservation Press, 1984). 

Mid-Century Banks: Design Philosophy. Available at: https://www.midcenturybanks.com/design-philosophy