Danville High School, Lexington Avenue, Danville, KY
Built in 1964, this modern building is home to Danville High School, and features a simple form with abstracted geometric features, little ornamentation, a boxy massing, and a brick, glass, and concrete exterior. The building was constructed on the former campus of the Kentucky College for Women, formerly the Caldwell Institute, which was founded in 1854, and was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, serving as a companion institution to the all-male Centre College. The site was also the former home of the Danville Classical and Military Institute, founded some time after the US Civil War, with the campus of the school being purchased by the Kentucky College for Women in 1880, moving into the old college building formerly on the site. The facilities of the college expanded greatly in the early 20th Century under the leadership of John C. Acheson, constructing Morgan Hall and East Hall, as well as a gymnasium. Due to financial difficulties, the college became affiliated with Centre College in 1926, with the relationship between the two institutions becoming more formalized in 1930. In 1962, the Kentucky College for Women was merged with Centre College, and the campus of the college was exchanged in a land swap deal for the former Danville High School campus adjacent to the Centre College Campus, with the demolition of the old Danville Classical and Military Institute building, East Hall, and Morgan Hall being carried out to make way for a new high school building shortly thereafter. The former Weisiger Art Building, Evans-Gore House, and Gymnasium of the Kentucky College for Women were retained on the site, and remain standing. The high school features a flat roof, geometric forms including angled sawtooth windows on the west facade, windows that look at each other rather than towards the perimeter of the campus on part of the south facade, vertically emphasized window bays with contrasting spandrel panels, a formalist front entrance with square concrete columns, a glass curtain wall, coffered concrete ceiling, and second-story balcony on the inside overlooking the front entrance, circular recesses on the ceiling at the east entrance, which also features a large glass curtain wall, formalist arrangement, and square concrete columns, decorative geometric concrete masonry inside the entrance to the gymnasium with a diamond-and-hexagon pattern, a “floating staircase” with a large curtain wall and suspended landing at the eastern end of the main building, a simple gymnasium building with a large glass curtain wall and cantilevered concrete canopy, and a utilitarian one-story rear wing linking the rear of the gymnasium with the rear of the main wing of the school. The 1960s building is a fine example of modernism as employed for an educational institution, though it is a noncontributing structure in the surrounding Lexington Avenue-Broadway Historic District.
Danville High School, Lexington Avenue, Danville, KY
Built in 1964, this modern building is home to Danville High School, and features a simple form with abstracted geometric features, little ornamentation, a boxy massing, and a brick, glass, and concrete exterior. The building was constructed on the former campus of the Kentucky College for Women, formerly the Caldwell Institute, which was founded in 1854, and was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, serving as a companion institution to the all-male Centre College. The site was also the former home of the Danville Classical and Military Institute, founded some time after the US Civil War, with the campus of the school being purchased by the Kentucky College for Women in 1880, moving into the old college building formerly on the site. The facilities of the college expanded greatly in the early 20th Century under the leadership of John C. Acheson, constructing Morgan Hall and East Hall, as well as a gymnasium. Due to financial difficulties, the college became affiliated with Centre College in 1926, with the relationship between the two institutions becoming more formalized in 1930. In 1962, the Kentucky College for Women was merged with Centre College, and the campus of the college was exchanged in a land swap deal for the former Danville High School campus adjacent to the Centre College Campus, with the demolition of the old Danville Classical and Military Institute building, East Hall, and Morgan Hall being carried out to make way for a new high school building shortly thereafter. The former Weisiger Art Building, Evans-Gore House, and Gymnasium of the Kentucky College for Women were retained on the site, and remain standing. The high school features a flat roof, geometric forms including angled sawtooth windows on the west facade, windows that look at each other rather than towards the perimeter of the campus on part of the south facade, vertically emphasized window bays with contrasting spandrel panels, a formalist front entrance with square concrete columns, a glass curtain wall, coffered concrete ceiling, and second-story balcony on the inside overlooking the front entrance, circular recesses on the ceiling at the east entrance, which also features a large glass curtain wall, formalist arrangement, and square concrete columns, decorative geometric concrete masonry inside the entrance to the gymnasium with a diamond-and-hexagon pattern, a “floating staircase” with a large curtain wall and suspended landing at the eastern end of the main building, a simple gymnasium building with a large glass curtain wall and cantilevered concrete canopy, and a utilitarian one-story rear wing linking the rear of the gymnasium with the rear of the main wing of the school. The 1960s building is a fine example of modernism as employed for an educational institution, though it is a noncontributing structure in the surrounding Lexington Avenue-Broadway Historic District.