And we seek it in public in our frustrated search for soul-enhancing rather than soul-destroying civic architecture.

Through its role in both civic architecture and print media, projective ornament began to integrate these distinct realms into a single public sphere visually unified by geometric pattern.

After the 1923 destruction by fire of the town hall, the area acquired a somewhat unified late-19th to early-20th century commercial and civic architecture.

One factor in this popularity was that obelisks were relatively cheap to build, while they also fitted well with the existing civic architecture in many towns.