As Sarasota MOD Weekend enters its final day, here’s an architectural history quiz that, I promise, will not be too hard. No questions about solids and voids and cantilevers and articulating spaces, really. Arcane historical facts? Well, maybe.
1.Sarasota MOD Weekend 2015, presented by the Sarasota Architectural Foundation, is focusing on a man who is arguably the most famous architect of the “Sarasota School.” He is:
a. I.M. Pei
b. Paul Rudolph
c. Gene Leedy
d. Morris Lapidus
2. The SAF has built a full-scale replica of a “Sarasota School” beach house on the grounds of The Ringling. Which one?
a. The Umbrella House
b. The Walker Guest House
c. The Burkhardt-Cohen House
d. The Cocoon House
The "Blue Pagoda" building. H-T archive photo / 2009
3. Victor Lundy, now 92 and living near Houston, designed many curvaceous buildings in Sarasota. Among them are:
a. The “Blue Pagoda.”
b. St. Paul Lutheran Church
c. VisionWorks
d. All of the above.
4. While at Harvard, Paul Rudolph studied under this Bauhaus architect:
a. Walter Gropius
b. Richard Neutra
c. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
d. Le Corbusier
Phil Hiss developed this neighborhood in 1950. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-30-2015.
5. Phil Hiss developed which 1950s neighborhood with midcentury modern architecture?
a. South Gate
b. Sandy Hook
c. Lido Shores
d. St. Armands
6. Who chose the color of Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall?
a. Frank Lloyd Wright
b. The Petticoat Painters
c. Syd Solomon
d. Olgivanna Wright
7. This Sarasota School architect designed Bay Plaza on the downtown bayfront and many projects for Arvida on Longboat Key:
a. Tim Seibert
b. Louis Schneider
c. Ralph Zimmerman
d. Joe Farrell
8. He wrote a book about Paul Rudolph:
a. Joe King
b. Tim Rohan
c. Chris Domin
d. All of the above
9. When he graduated from college, Paul Rudolph worked for, and later with, this architect before they had a less-than-amicable split in 1952:
a. Thomas Reed Martin
b. Ralph Twitchell
c. Clarence Hosmer
d. James Gamble Rogers
10. He studied under Paul Rudolph in 1962 when P.R. was dean of architecture at Yale.
a. Carl Abbott
b. Frank Folsom Smith
c. Norman Foster
d. (a) and (c)
Answers to architectural history quiz
1. b. Paul Rudolph. This modernist architect (1918-1977) was known for his experimental Florida beach houses, and, later in his career, expressive and monumental buildings, many of them using raw concrete surfaces and contributing to a movement known as Brutalism. His most notable Sarasota nonresidential building is Sarasota High School.
The Walker Guest House Replica, built on the grounds of The Ringling museums by the Sarasota Architectural Foundation for Sarasota MOD Weekend, will open to the public Nov. 6, 2015, for an 11-month display. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 10-20-2015.
2. b. The Walker Guest House. Completed in 1953 on Sanibel Island, the house was built for Walter Walker, a Minnesota doctor and museum benefactor. It is known for its panels, or flaps, which can be raised or lowered to let in or keep out light and air.
3. d. All of the above. Lundy’s church and “Blue Pagoda” next to the Sarasota Garden Club are still standing as designed in the 1950s. The VisionWorks building is a complete remodeling (some would say destruction) of Lundy’s 1959 Galloway’s Furniture building just north of the old Sarasota High School building on U.S. 41.
4. a. Walter Gropius. Founder of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany, in 1919, Gropius was not Adolph Hitler’s favorite architect. He left Germany for the United States in 1934 and became chairman of architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In the 1940s, he signed a letter for Paul Rudolph recommending that the latter not be drafted back into the service for the Korean War.
5. c. Lido Shores. Hiss designed several houses in the neighborhood, but notably hired Rudolph, Tim Seibert and others to design the most prominent homes, such as the Umbrella House. Hiss was a “renaissance man” who sailed into Sarasota in the late 1940s and decided to buy a spit of sand from the Ringling estate. That sand became Lido Shores in 1950. It still is Sarasota’s best-known subdivision for modernist architecture, although a mix of architectural styles can be found there.
Yes, it's purple and lavender. But we love it. Whom do we have to thank for the color of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall? Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 9-30-2014.
6. d. Olgivanna Lloyd Wright was Frank Lloyd Wright’s third wife. Her son-in-law, William Wesley Peters, led Taliesin Associated Architects in designing the “Purple Cow” in the late 1960s, a decade after Frank Lloyd Wright’s death. Peters was married to Olgivanna’s daughter Svetlana, who was adopted by Frank Lloyd Wright, and later to Joseph Stalin’s daughter, also named Svetlana.
7. a. Tim Seibert grew up in California and Sarasota, and attended Stanford and the University of Florida, where he was inspired by architecture professor Ted Fearney. He designed the Hiss Studio in 1953 in Lido Shores, and founded his own firm in 1955. Seibert Architects is the oldest architecture firm in Sarasota. Seibert, 88, is retired and lives in Boca Grande.
8. d. All of the above. Tim Rohan wrote “The Architecture of Paul Rudolph,” which was published in 2014. Domin and King co-wrote 2002’s “Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses.” All three men are speaking on the 2015 Sarasota MOD Weekend Sunday program.
9. b. Ralph Twitchell. The dashing World War I fighter pilot came to Sarasota in 1925 to supervise the closing stages of construction of John and Mable Ringling’s Ca’ d’Zan for New York architect Dwight James Baum. Twitchell stayed in Sarasota for a few years, designing some houses in the Whitfield Estates area, retreated to New York after the real estate market crashed, and returned to Sarasota in the mid-1930s to reestablish his practice. He hired Rudolph in 1941 for a few months, and formed a partnership with him after Rudolph graduated from Harvard after World War II. They successfully adapted the International Style of modernist architecture to Florida’s climate. But by 1952, the pair had split as the ambitious Rudolph sought more credit for his work and Twitchell, who got the daring projects built, resented the younger man’s frequent travels and attention-seeking from the popular and architectural press.
Cover photo: The 1957 Burkhardt House, now the Burkhardt-Cohen House, by Paul Rudolph. Photo by Harold Bubil.
10. d. Carl Abbott, FAIA, still practices in Sarasota and has won many architectural awards. Foster runs a huge firm in London, has won the Pritzker Prize and is known as Baron Foster of Thames Bank — one of the world’s foremost architects today.
Scoring
10 correct — Pritzker Prize.
9 — AIA Gold Medal.
8 — AIA Florida Test of Time award.
7 — Architectural apprentice.
6 or fewer — Journalism major.
