On Saturday, June 13, 2009 the demolition of the Rudolph designed Riverview High School began. Posted below are a few pictures.
Click here for the link to the Sarasota Herald Tribune article.
Riverview High School in Sarasota, FL was designed by Paul Rudolph, world renowned architect. The building is threatened with demolition as the Sarasota School Board looks at options for updating the Riverview campus. It is hoped that by publicizing the potential destruction of the significant building a way can be found to save it.
On Saturday, June 13, 2009 the demolition of the Rudolph designed Riverview High School began. Posted below are a few pictures.
Click here for the link to the Sarasota Herald Tribune article.
Riverview recaptured
By Tiffany Lankes
Published: Friday, May 22, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.It is almost time for Riverview High School students and staff to move into their new building, making way for the bulldozers to demolish the old classrooms. But first, a proper send-off for the 50-year-old original campus.
The school is welcoming alumni, former staff and community members to tour the old campus for the last time this weekend before it finishes its move June 4. The old buildings will be demolished over the summer.
The move brings an end to a years-long drama in which architecture activists protested the School Board's plan to tear down the old buildings. They were designed by renowned architect Paul Rudolph and are considered a prime example of the Sarasota school of architecture he founded.
Presentation on Music Quadrangle 'fires up' attendees
By Rachel Brown Hackney
Local preservationists working to save the original Paul Rudolph building at Riverview High School in Sarasota say they were pleased with the turnout last week at a fundraiser hosted by Northern Trust at its Ringling Boulevard offices.More than 60 people - including Sarasota County School Board member Carol Todd - heard a revised presentation by New York City architect Diane Lewis about her plans for transforming the building into the Riverview Music Quadrangle. The plans call not only for use of the structure by students but as a setting for nationally and internationally known musicians who could work as artists in residence.
When the school board voted on March 4 to give the Sarasota Architectural Foundation a three-month extension on its efforts to put together a viable plan for the Music Quadrangle, Todd was an enthusiastic supporter of the project. She initially proposed the board give the SAF a six-month extension, before staff said that would hamper the August 2009 completion date for the new school if the Rudolph building ultimately had to be demolished.
Referring to the April 2 event, former Sarasota Mayor Mollie Cardamone told the Pelican Press, "I believe that we educated a lot of people as to the importance of our job" - to save the Rudolph building. Lewis "dazzled the audience" with her vision and with her talk of the significance of the building as an example of the Sarasota School of Architecture, Cardamone added.
Links: The rest of the story
Rudolph building finally has real hope for rescue
A year and a half ago, we would have laid better than even odds that the original Paul Rudolph structure at Riverview High School ultimately would face the wrecking ball. Now this community has before it a clear vision for the building's rescue and resurrection.Fortunately both the conservationists fighting to save this fine example of the Sarasota School of Architecture and the Sarasota County School Board members were able to push beyond their almost childlike petulance in debating its future and work toward common ground. They managed to pave the way for what we find is a magnificent means of saving a piece of history while making Sarasota's cultural star shine even more brightly.
The intervention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in holding a "charrette" last March to ponder just how the Rudolph building could be saved was invaluable in this process. As a result, the Sarasota Architectural Foundation was able to fund and hold a competition seeking a viable future for the structure. That competition produced a proposal for a Music Quadrangle that would build upon Riverview's much-deserved reputation as a Music Demonstration School in this state.
The SAF will have until March 15 to prove that the Music Quadrangle is more than just a designer's dream, but given architect Diane Lewis' passion for her proposal, we truly believe it can become a reality.
Speak to Lewis for just a few minutes and you will know not only that she is absolutely committed to saving the Rudolph building and restoring it to its former luster but that she wants to use her many resources to expand on just the type of activity that the Itzhak Perlman Music Program has become for Sarasota. She wants to see other world-class musicians as artists in residence working with young people on the Riverview campus, and musical programs open to the public to showcase internationally known stars and the next generation who will be following in their footsteps.
When the school board met with Lewis and SAF epresentatives on Dec. 11, we heard a lot of concerns raised about the work that will have to be done - with the new school already under way - to make the Music Quadrangle fit on the redeveloped campus. Yet, we also heard Diane Lewis say those obstacles are in no way insurmountable.
Of course, the final act in this process belongs to the school board. Come March, its five members will decide once and for all whether Paul Rudolph's original vision for Riverview High will be burnished in a new use or left only as a memory in the pages of architectural students' textbooks.
If Diane Lewis and the SAF fulfill their part of the bargain, as we believe they will, then it should be very easy for the school board to give them their blessings to proceed.
There's still a long way to go, but the effort to save the Paul Rudolph-designed buildings at Riverview High took a big step this week.
The Sarasota Architectural Foundation's Revive Rudolph's Riverview committee presented proposals to the Sarasota County School Board, which is building a new complex at the 42-acre site on Proctor Road.
Five architect-developer teams participated in the Request for Proposals process; one team withdrew. The four remaining proposals were ranked in order and presented to the School Board on Tuesday.
The first-ranked proposal, which called for an adaptive use that would join the historic and new RHS buildings, was dismissed by School Board members because it did not fit the criteria set forth by the board: the Rudolph project could not delay or add cost to the new RHS project.
That leaves the second-ranked proposal -- something called the Riverview Music Quadrangle.
Submitted by the design team of RMJM Hillier, with Diane Lewis Architect and Beckelman+Capalino of New York, and Seibert Architects of Sarasota, this plan calls for "a collaborative environment for new and existing Sarasota music activities," according to a statement by the Revive Rudolph's Riverview committee. "It would complement the Riverview High School and other Sarasota County school music programs, and it would provide studio space and performance venues for community groups and orchestras."