Mark Hampton, left, Tim Seibert and Gene Leedy, right, at gathering in Sarasota in 2001. Herald-Tribune archive.
Mark Hampton, a member of the group of midcentury modern architects known as the "Sarasota School," died Saturday at his home in Coconut Grove. He was 91.
Hampton practiced in Tampa and later Miami.
He is one of the original "Sarasota School" architects, having worked in Ralph Twitchell and Paul Rudolph's firm in 1951 before opening a Tampa office in 1952.
Among his notable projects in Sarasota County were Venice Middle School (1957) and McIntosh Middle School (1962).
He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
"He was one of the original good gang," said retired architect Edward J. "Tim" Seibert, a contemporary of Hampton. "He was a good designer and always a pleasant guy to have around. If someone said, 'Mark is in town, let's have lunch with him,' I would get right on it."
In Tampa, he designed the One Davis Boulevard office building, a Galloway's Furniture store and two buildings at the University of South Florida, along with several modernist residences. The 1963 Horizon House in Tampa won an award from a trade association that represented concrete manufacturers.
In Miami, he redesigned a storage building into the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum, and also did the open-air Bal Harbour Shops, north of Miami Beach, in 1965 with Herbert H. Johnson & Assoc. Hampton also designed the Neiman-Marcus there, in 1971. The mall is lush with palm trees, fountains, koi ponds and other devices that blend interior and exterior spaces and add to the shopping experience by enhancing the sense of place.
At the time of his death, Hampton was consulting with the mall's ownership on the construction of a 250,000-square-foot addition.
View a YouTube video of the mall by clicking here.
The Jordan Residence in Lake Wales is another Hampton-designed residence of note.
Early in his career, he was a go-between who coordinated work on in-development projects after Rudolph split with Twitchell.
