Sunday, February 14, 2010

Why So Unattractive?

Thinking that the P&C must have photographed the new Sanders-Clyde from its most unattractive angle, I checked out the building myself this morning. [See Sanders-Clyde School Ready for Reopening in Sunday's edition.] After all, in the photo it looks like a maximum-security prison.

No, it turns out that this is one of the few angles where the mud-colored brick cannot be seen.

For an "arts-infused" school, is there any reason why it must be so ugly? Surely $26 million could have purchased design more pleasing to the eye!

Let's hope that inside it's more appealing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree more. I drive by this monstrosity everyday. Why would you build a school that looks like a prison in the middle of a low income area? I can only hope they saved the nice design for the interior spaces.

Clisby said...

Well, I wouldn't say it looks prison-like from East Bay St. But I'm with Babbie on the unattractive brick. Maybe that's supposed to be an artistic touch, but to me it looks like they ran out of one color and said, "Oh, heck, nobody will care if we just use a totally different color here in the middle."

Anonymous said...

Babbie, this isn't about Sanders Clyde and I know that you will probably comment on this later, but it really gets to me that Haut Gap has a program there called AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. Whoa!! Is this a school, county,state or federal program, and how much is it costing? Sad!!

Anonymous said...

According to the P&C article, "officials tried to ensure that its building looked like part of its surroundings." At least that was the sentiment attributed to the school district's facilities director, Bill Lewis.

I also hope the interior looks less forboding than the exterior. You would think an architect raised in Charleston [Harvey Gantt] would know not to turn a building's back to the neighborhood. He should know that flat roofs leak. And we should know the University of Pennsylvania isn't here for this school. But then again the people spending our money with abandon and telling the architect what to do aren't from around here either.

Still talking a blue streak about all the new programs for S-C, you might think McGinley's $110,000 a year public relations director wrote this as a news release, too.