ESENWEIN, Fred2018-10-302018-10-302018-10-25ESENWEIN, Fred – Agrarian Ideals in American Architecture Schools in REGIONALISM, NATIONALISM & MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Proceedings. Porto: CEAA, 2018, p. 101-113978-972-8784-82-9http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/24590In the United States, the school stands out as a building type attempting to coalesce American modernism and agrarianism. Stylistically rural schools built since the mid-twentieth century are typically modern, yet a few hint at representing an agrarian ideology that has persisted from Thomas Jefferson. Two case studies topically illustrate changing attitudes of agrarianism as found in school architecture over the last 75 years - Richard Neutra’s unbuilt “School in the Neighborhood Center” (1944) and the Buckingham County Primary + Elementary School (2012) in Virginia by VMDO Architects. The former school appears at the transition from schools built for small towns to city suburbs while trying to preserve and embody aspects of a Jeffersonian agrarian society, a political orientation. The latter school design is a recent school project in a rural county expressing the qualities of the local land, an ecological orientation. Together, these schools suggest some possibilities and limits of associating agrarianism with architecture.engAgrarianismSchoolsRichard NeutraVMDO Architectsconference object