When I was about 10, my family visited my great-grandmother for Christmas in Fort Myers, stopping in Sarasota and St. Pete, where my dad grew up. At the time, I was fascinated by modern architecture and loved Florida's wide open, sunny landscape. It felt like I’d time traveled—surf shacks and colorful beach umbrellas all reminiscent of earlier years—leaving me nostalgic for old Florida, one that will live fully in my imagination, untouched and picturesque.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of going to the Winter Show Design Luncheon. There, the design firm Gachot shared their Paul Rudolf apartment:
The apartment—while completely unrealistic—got me thinking about modern architecture. After watching potentially overdoing it on House and Garden videos, I needed a reminder of my first love: modernism. My sister loves Brutalist architecture—she wrote her thesis about Paul Rudolph's Cannon Chapel, one of his lesser-known works on the Emory University campus. I was unaware of Sarasota's influence on modernism until I learned about “Sarasota School.” My fascination with the area that trip, now 15 years later, made more sense.
One of the key players in the “school” was Paul Rudolph. Rudolph's early work consisted mainly of residential homes in Florida, and his first solo project was The Walker Guest House, “considered to be one of the most important architectural designs of the twentieth century.”
Until watching the Florida MCM House tour, I’d never heard of Gene Leedy. He was the first employee of Paul Rudolf and became part of the movement of Sarasota Modernism, which he coined “Sarasota School.” The movement reminds me of Black Mountain College, a short-lived powerhouse that influenced much of what we know today—another fascination for another day.
