Poetter Hall | |
---|---|
Former names | Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory Preston Hall |
General information | |
Architectural style | Richardsonian Romanesque |
Address | 342 Bull Street Madison Square Savannah, Georgia, United States |
Coordinates | 32°4′23″N81°5′38″W / 32.07306°N 81.09389°W |
Construction started | 1892 |
Completed | 1893 |
Owner | Savannah College of Art and Design |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 3 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | William G. Preston |
Poetter Hall is an academic building in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Designed by William G. Preston and completed in 1893, the building originally served as a National Guard Armory and was called the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory. In 1979, the building underwent an extensive renovation and became the first academic building for the Savannah College of Art and Design.
In April 1889, a fire destroyed a National Guard Armory in Savannah, Georgia, which had been designed by architect J. A. Wood in 1885. [1] In 1890, the Savannah Volunteer Guards (a part of the United States National Guard) purchased a new property at the intersection of Bull Street and Madison Street and, while initially planning to simply expand the pre-existing building at the site, decided instead to demolish the building and build a new armory at the site. [2] William G. Preston was hired to design the new building, [2] having established himself as an architect in the city since designing the Chatham County courthouse in 1889. [3] Preston would go on to design several Romanesque Revival buildings in the city, [4] and the design for the armory, called the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory, was in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. [5] The location for the new armory was across the street from the Hotel DeSoto, [6] which Preston had designed several years earlier in 1890. Construction began in February 1892, [2] and by 1893 the building was completed. [7] The building would house the National Guard unit, and later a high school, until World War II, when the United Service Organizations became the building's main tenants. [8]
In March 1979, the building was acquired by the newly-created Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to serve as their first academic building. [9] At the time, the building was in a deteriorated state, and a large-scale renovation commenced. [10] The building, rechristened Preston Hall after its architect, opened in September 1979, and the following year, SCAD received an award from the Historic Savannah Foundation for their preservation efforts with the building. [11] The building was later renamed to its current name in honor of May and Paul Poetter, two cofounders of SCAD and parents of fellow SCAD cofounder Paula Wallace. [12]
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. It was founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the United States. The university enrolls more than 16,000 students from across the United States and around the world with international students comprising up to 17 percent of the student population. SCAD is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and other professional accrediting bodies.
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William Gibbons Preston was an American architect who practiced during the last third of the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth. Educated at Harvard University and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was active in Boston, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia, where he was brought by George Johnson Baldwin to design the Chatham County courthouse. Preston stayed in Savannah for several years during which time designed the original Desoto Hotel, the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory and 20 other distinguished public buildings and private homes. He began his professional career working for his father, the builder and architect Jonathan Preston (1801–1888), upon his return to the United States from the École in 1861, and was the sole practitioner in the office from the time his father retired c. 1875 until he took John Kahlmeyer as a partner in about 1885.
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