Moderns That Matter

1A Ca’ d’Zan - 1926

In 1924, circus entrepreneur John Ringling and his wife Mable commissioned Dwight James Baum of New York City to design their Venetian Gothic Revival style residence. Ralph Spencer Twitchell, who is credited with helping found the Sarasota School of Architecture, came to the area in 1925 to oversee the construction of the Ringling mansion and other local buildings designed by Baum. British architectural historian Marcus Binney, in describing Ca’ d’Zan, stated, “This delightful extravaganza among pastiches, built only two years before Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy, owes its exuberance, its individuality and a certain uncouthness to the determined tastes of its builders, John and Mable Ringling.” Country Life, October 28, 1976

Architect: Dwight James Baum

5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota

Image Courtesy: www.ringling.org

1B John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art - 1930

Architect: John Phillips

5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota

Photo: Joseph Steinmetz

5 Sarasota Opera House - 1926

“Edwards Theater Offers Tickets To Tourists Free.” Sarasota Herald, November 23, 1928

Architect: Roy Benjamin Builder: G. A. Miller

61 North Pineapple Avenue, Sarasota

The Sarasota Opera House was originally the Edwards Theater, named for two-term mayor A. B. Edwards who promoted the city as a resort destination. The multi-functional building provided space for shops, offices, 12 apartments, and the theater with balcony, which would be racially segregated until the 1960s. In 1982 the Asolo Opera Guild restored the building. Harold Bubil, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, December 26, 2020

Image Courtesy: Sarasota County History Center

83 McCulloch Pavilion - 2015 (1960)

“It captured my heart… Every day the light plays a slightly differ- ent tune throughout the building space…[it] is so important to the architectural history of Sarasota.” Nomination By Hilary Gardner Keaton

Architects: William Rupp and Joseph Farrell Restoration Architect: Guy Peterson OFA

Completed in 1960, this Sarasota School of Architecture commercial building was rehabilitated and adaptively used to house the newly formed Center for Architecture Sarasota (established 2013) – one of the legacy organizations of Architecture Sarasota.

261-265 South Orange Avenue, Sarasota

Photo: Ryan Gamma Photography

91 Sarasota Art Museum - 2019 (1926, 1960)

“This renovation with its modern new entrance and skylight show how modern interventions can complement existing structures whether traditional such as the existing red brick school building or the earlier modernist white Sarasota high school buildings by Paul Rudolph. It is both respectful of its context and reinvigorating of the two existing buildings.” Nomination by Donna Selene Seftel

Architect: Lawson Group Architects and Keenan Riley Architects

1001 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota

Opened in 2019, the Sarasota Art Museum, governed by the Ringling College of Art, is a “catalyst for appreciation and understanding of the art of our time.” The Museum is housed in two creatively repurposed public educational buildings. The former Sarasota High School, designed in a Collegiate Gothic style by architect M. Leo Elliott in 1926 contains the main galleries. Across an entry courtyard, the Museum’s café and main lecture space are located in a simple, one-story building designed by architect Paul Rudolph as part of his Sarasota High School expansion that was completed in 1960.

Photo: Courtesy of Sarasota Art Museum

91 Former Galloway’s Furniture Store - 1959

The Galloway Furniture Company was founded in Tampa by entrepreneur Ralph Galloway in 1948 and quickly grew to seven locations in Florida. In addition to being the wholesalers of the most popular modern mass-produced designs of the day, the company had its own factory that manufactured modern furniture. The “Signature Group” was advertised as a line of modern furniture personally inspected and signed by Ralph Galloway. Galloway commissioned noted mod- ernist architects to construct new showrooms in their Florida locations including Mark Hampton in Tampa where the company originated and Victor Lundy in Sarasota.

Architect: Victor Lundy

The Lundy designed Galloway’s showroom opened in 1959. A full-page newspaper ad described the building as taking “design cues from the graceful morning glory, the laminated arches simulate the stems and the redwood decking the petals of the flowers. Two hundred and ninety feet of charcoal glass twenty feet high protects the interior from the glare and the heat of the sun. An enormous “floating” mezzanine visually circles the inner core or trunk of redwood that literally grows from the center.” The Tampa Tribune, January 25, 1959

Now part of the Sarasota Art Museum campus, the building was adaptively used for an eyeglass store in the 1980s. Although obscured, many of the original architectural features and materials remain.

891 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota

Image Courtesy: Library of Congress