now West Intermediate School
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West Junior-Senior High School Building (now West Intermediate School)
1922, William Ittner. W. 5th Ave. between Locust and Western streets
A good, solid example of the classic midwestern school building of the years 1910 through the 1920s, this structure has red brick walls trimmed in Indiana limestone and punctured by banks of wide windows. The detailing of the central four-story pavilion would seem to indicate that we are to think of the Queen Anne period of English architecture, a period that recalls an inventive play between classicism and the late medieval. When built, this building was described as “a masterpiece in modern school planning.” As is par for the course in so many recent remodelings in Iowa, new metal windows have been insensitively applied to the building.
At Sixth and Locust streets, behind the building, is a small brick and stone-trimmed ticket booth for Wallace Stadium. This delightful little building has all the appearance of a pavilion one might encounter in an eighteenth-century English garden.
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