Besides being a gentleman, Mark Hampton, at least early in his career as an architect, had to be something of a diplomat.
In 1951, after the noted partnership of Ralph Twitchell and Paul Rudolph split up on not the best of terms, it was Hampton’s job to act as a go-between as the dissolved firm’s ongoing projects were completed.
That experience served him well, as Hampton teamed with other architects on several of his most notable projects, including schools in Sarasota and the Bal Harbour Shops in Miami.
A member of the group of midcentury modern architects known as the “Sarasota School,” Hampton died Feb. 28 at his home in Coconut Grove.
He was 91.
Hampton, a Tampa native, practiced there after his time in Sarasota, and then opened a firm in Coconut Grove in 1974.
Among his notable projects in Sarasota County were Venice and McIntosh middle schools (1957 and ’62, respectively).
He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, achieving that distinction after fewer than 20 years in practice.
“He was one of the original good gang,” said retired architect Edward J. “Tim” Seibert, a Hampton contemporary. “He was a good designer and always a pleasant guy to have around.”
In Tampa, Hampton 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 makers.
In Miami, he redesigned a storage building as 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 — a key tenet of the Sarasota School — and adds 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 construction of a 250,000-square-foot addition.
The 1956 Jordan Residence in Lake Wales is another acclaimed Hampton-designed residence.
