Art: Sarasota Success Story

When Philip Hanson Hiss, 48, settled down to the real estate business in booming Sarasota, Fla. (pop. 45,000), he quickly established a reputation for being a damyankee with the loudest mouth around. What Hiss found to shout about was the school building program. Says he: “When I got the facts I went wild. Some of the schools were downright unsanitary. The rest rooms were so bad the kids wouldn’t even go to the bathroom. And the curriculum was just as bad.” In 1953 a friend jokingly challenged him to run for the school board. A self-styled Renaissance man who never went beyond prep school (Choate), Hiss took the dare, to his surprise wound up as the first Republican elected to the school board since Reconstruction days.

Crusader Hiss* first had to take his lumps. He got nine out-of-town architects to submit plans, saw them turned down cold because the plans smacked of “progressive education.” But Hiss kept fighting for good design, pointed out that the cheapest schools run up the highest maintenance costs. The next year he won his first round. M.I.T. educated Architect William Zimmerman of Sarasota, 42, got the job of designing the twelve-classroom Brookside Junior High School. Zimmerman proceeded to divide his project into a campus of long, low-slung buildings attached to a central, triangular walk. He installed floor-to-ceiling school windows, protected by an 8-ft. overhang to keep sun from desks. But what wowed the school board was that the building came in $40,000 under the estimate. “When they saw the building, they were completely sold,” says Hiss triumphantly. “Their minds had been closed since the age of seven. I finally got them sane. After that, I felt like Machiavelli’s brother. It was like taking candy from a baby.”

The school board then adopted a hands-off attitude that challenged the architects to do their best. Result: Sarasota schools, once a collection of piano crates and grim barracks, are now a showcase of school architecture. Among Sarasota’s best:

¶ Alta Vista Elementary School, a twelve-classroom $154,213 addition designed by Sarasota’s Harvard-trained Victor Lundy, 35, with laminated-wood beams and arches supporting a butterfly roof that cantilevers out 18 ft.

¶ Venice Junior High School, a $548,213 building for 450 pupils, an uncompromisingly modular steel, concrete and glass campus plan that Architects John Crowell of Sarasota, 43, and Mark Hampton of Tampa, 35, thought would best adjust to the changing demands of function. Colored panels and waffle-grid roof lighten the heavy industrial look.

¶ Riverview Junior-Senior High School, a 24-classroom, $1,204,945, two-story building by Yale’s Architecture Department Chairman Paul Rudolph, 40. Built round a central courtyard. Rudolph’s school uses exposed steel and white brick, copious canopies for sunshade.

With four brand-new schools opened this term, Sarasota is sure it can top any community in the U.S. in school architecture. But for Yankee Hiss, biggest kick was to see truancy drastically cut. Says he proudly: “That’s one happy result of decent architecture—the kids actually enjoy going to school now.”

*Alger Hiss is a third cousin.