Roofs in Asheville (Downtown): Art Deco in Decline
Asheville sits in a basin surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the French Broad River cuts through the Appalachians. It’s a city that rises gradually from the valley, climbing up the hillsides – and this topography means you always see the roofs here. From every viewpoint, every hillside parking lot, the windows of hotels scattered across the slopes. Downtown Asheville isn’t a flat street grid – it’s a layered arrangement of terraces and sloped perspectives where the roof becomes as important as the facade.
When you look at downtown from Battery Park Avenue or near Grove Arcade, you see something almost extinct in other American cities of this scale: a cohesive art deco skyline built in the 1920s and ’30s. These aren’t New York-style skyscrapers – they’re mid-rise buildings, six to fifteen stories, with roofs that terminate the structure decisively, geometrically, sometimes sharply, sometimes in steps. Asheville didn’t sprawl horizontally like Atlanta or shoot upward like Charlotte. It stopped at a certain point – which is precisely why its roofs are so legible.
A Skyline Built in a Single Era
Downtown Asheville is the product of a building boom from the late 1920s into the early ’30s – a period when the city tried to become a regional capital, a tourist destination, and a banking center all at once. That’s when the Jackson Building, City Hall, Buncombe County Courthouse, and a dozen hotels and office buildings went up. All in art deco style, with touches of neo-Gothic and modernism – but always with attention to proportion, detail, and roofline.
What distinguishes these roofs is their geometric discipline. No mansards, dormers, or pseudo-historical towers. Instead: sharp peaks, flat terraces with balustrades, profiled cornices that emphasize the edge between roof and sky. Materials are typically copper or zinc sheet metal, patinated over decades to a matte green or gray. These roofs don’t shine – they dull, giving them a quiet gravity.
You can’t see this from street level. But climb to the Grove Arcade parking deck, the Aloft Hotel terrace, or the hill by the Basilica of Saint Lawrence – and suddenly all of Downtown arranges itself into a rhythmic composition of pitched and flat planes, where each roof has its purpose. They don’t compete – they form a chorus.
A Material That Ages with Dignity
Most roofs in downtown Asheville are covered with metal – copper, galvanized steel, sometimes coated. This was a typical choice for public buildings of that era: durable, lightweight, easy to work with on complex geometries. Metal allowed for precise edge finishing, creating eaves, cornices, and gutters that were integral parts of the facade.
Today these roofs are a hundred years old. The copper has passed through all phases of patina – from red, through brown, to the green that in Appalachia’s humid climate gains depth and variation. Zinc grays evenly, creating a matte surface that absorbs light rather than reflecting it. These are materials that require no painting, no replacement every twenty years. They age – but they don’t deteriorate.
In a city that endured hard decades after the Great Depression, where money for repairs was scarce for years, this durability proved crucial. The roofs survived because they were well-designed and built with materials that don’t demand constant intervention. It’s a lesson you can see with your own eyes: quality at the start translates to peace of mind for generations.
The Roof as Crown – Not an Afterthought
In art deco architecture, the roof isn’t something you “add on” at the end. It’s an element that shapes the building’s proportions from the start. The Jackson Building – the city’s tallest for decades – tops out with a steep gable roof that elongates the mass and gives it verticality. City Hall has a flat roof with a balustrade that frames the building like a picture. S&W Cafeteria – now Turner’s – has a roof nearly invisible from street level, but from above you can see it’s a flat plane with a central skylight illuminating the interior.
These roofs aren’t ornamental. They’re functional, economical, precise. But that’s exactly what makes them beautiful. They don’t try to grab attention – they simply complete the building logically and quietly. And it’s precisely this quietness that makes the entire Downtown look harmonious, even though the buildings were constructed in different years by different architects.
When you look at these roofs with the perspective of time, you see that the design decisions from the thirties still work. The proportions are right. The materials hold up. The form hasn’t gone out of style because it was never stylish – it was simply well thought out.
Contemporary Additions and the Question of Continuity
Asheville is experiencing a renaissance today. Downtown is being built again, but this time not from scratch – rather through adaptations, additions, and infill projects. New hotels, apartments, and offices are emerging. And each must answer the question: how do you build a roof that doesn’t destroy what already exists?
Some developers choose imitation – new gable roofs, gray patinated metal, cornices styled after art deco. It’s safe, but sometimes artificial. Other buildings pursue contrast: flat roofs with greenery, glass, steel, minimalist forms. It’s risky, but when the proportions are right – it works.
The most compelling examples are those that neither imitate nor force contrast – they simply continue the logic of the place. Clean geometries, matte materials, crisp edges. Roofs that are invisible from street level but create a new layer in the urban landscape from above. It’s an approach that demands confidence and trust in form.
The City Viewed from Above – and Below
In Asheville, the roof has two scales. From street level – especially in narrow passages between buildings – you mainly see facades, signs, storefronts. But climb to a higher level – a parking deck, terrace, hillside – and suddenly the city opens up as a pattern of roofs. That’s when you see how much the roof determines a place’s character.
From above, you also see what’s invisible from below: the condition of coverings, how water is managed, how neighboring roofs interact – or don’t. You can spot which roofs were maintained with care and which were neglected. Where someone installed an AC unit without thinking about aesthetics, and where mechanical equipment was enclosed, concealed, integrated.
This dual perspective – from below and above – is worth keeping in mind when thinking about your own home. A roof isn’t designed just for yourself, but also for those viewing from above: from a neighboring hill, a higher building window, a drone. And that aerial view often validates decisions that seemed insignificant from ground level.
What Stays with You
Asheville Downtown is a city you can read through its roofs. Their form, material, proportion – all tell the story of when they were built, the ambitions that shaped them, and the quality that allowed them to endure. These aren’t spectacular roofs – they’re simply good. And that’s precisely why they work.
For anyone considering building their own home, Asheville demonstrates something important: the roof isn’t an add-on, it’s the crowning element. It determines proportion, how a building ages over time, how it looks from every angle. And it’s worth choosing a material that won’t demand constant attention – one that will quietly, for decades, simply do its job.
In a city surrounded by mountains, where the view from above matters as much as the street view, roofs tell the truth about architecture. And that truth is simple: good form, good material, good proportion – these are things that stand the test of time.
