NY Times Article About Riverview Decision

Time Is Running Out for a Celebrated Building
By DAVID HAY

Of the many Modernist buildings Paul Rudolph designed in Sarasota, Fla., his stomping ground in the 1940s and ’50s, Riverview High School is among the most influential.

Not only is it a classic example of his early Sarasota style, with clean, horizontal planes; natural lighting; and inventive sunshades to cool the interiors, but it has also housed tens of thousands of students who have been schooled there in the last half-century.

This week the Sarasota County School Board cleared the way for the demolition of the building at the end of the 2008-9 school year. The board voted 3 to 2 not to proceed with a restoration proposed by preservationists that would turn the school, built in 1958, into a music conservatory.

School board members voting against the plan said the building’s defenders had failed to come up with a credible strategy to finance the restoration. They also said the project could jeopardize the future of a new Riverview High School building currently under construction on the tight 42-acre campus.

The entire story can be found here