Trapezoidal Muntin Grids

The three connected buildings of the former Suffolk Manufacturing Company in Lowell, known as Mills Nos. 5, 6 and 8, were built in 1862 (No. 5) and 1880 (Nos. 6 and 8), at a time when the city of Lowell was one of the predominant centers of the textile industry in the United States. Located within the Locks and Canals National Register Historic District, this impressive complex of mill buildings housed in more recent years a synthetic textile weaving operation under the ownership of the Wannalancit Textile Company. In 1981 the buildings were acquired for development as the Wannalancit Office and Technology Center, a project involving 286,000 square feet of rental space. The long unbroken pattern of some 900 small-paned windows dominates the facades of these buildings and is clearly their most significant architectural element. At the time of the conversion to an office complex, the original doublehung windows, arranged with 12-over-12 lights, had survived in Mills Nos. 6 and 8, but virtually all the sash and some of the frames had been removed form Mill No. 5 (see figure 1).