I worked 2 blocks from the Harry Dwoskin office for almost 20 years. Shutze designed the remodel beginning in 1939. It's a very gentle, classy little building. It always looked old and the better for it's wear. For most of that time it was home to the "Atlanta Area Services for the Blind" now called the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired; a charming building that served a worthy cause.
I doubt that there is a cozier, more comfortable sidewalk on all of Peachtree.
Sunday mornings are the only time you can park on Peachtree and even then only near churches.
It has held it's own surrounded by 3 important Peachtree Street churches: Redeemer Lutheran, St. Marks Methodist, and First Baptist (now demolished). Niches, pediments, and arches galore.
It's abandoned now as is Buck Crooks nearby Crumb and Foster Building.
Parking is a problem. There is a lot in the back but I can't find a way in. It may be blocked to discourage urban camping.
Quite a shame. It's a unique building in one of Peachtree Street's great blocks.
"As Shutze passed by the building each day on a city bus, it became his custom to stop and review the mason's work from the previous day. If he noticed too many brick of the same tone clustered together, he would require the masons to tear out portions of their work and rearrange the bricks..." - American Classicist The Architecture of Philip Trammell Shutze by Elizabeth Meredith Dowling.
My eye has never quite made sense of the of door.
Stacked niches
I'm going to the 2010 Philip Trammell Shutze Awards on February 20th in Atlanta You should too. In the run up to the awards I'm doing a batch of posts about Shutze in my "neighborhood."
Thanks,
Terry
terry @ surf303.com
No pro photography or pro architecture was committed in this post.
P.S. Blue has identified this Shuzte Building just a few blocks from the Dwoskin office. Here is another clue:
Posts
Not sure I've ever noticed the building. I'll be riding my bike down Peachtree tomorrow morning and will look for it.
ReplyDeleteTerry, I've seen this building but I never paid attention to that teeny bricked up doorway. Glad to know more history!
ReplyDeleteThe ironwork is from the Academy of Medicine on West Peachtree.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that the windows are so close to the sidewalk...I wonder if it was build up later, and there were steps? There is a great formal symmetry at work here.
ReplyDeleteBest,
Michelle
This was a remodel 60 years ago, no clue to what it looked like before.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting and I hope that someone will put this landmark to good use!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great building. I never realized it was empty. That rather surprises me, given its location.
ReplyDeleteWell BKing. I counting on you to get somebody in there.
ReplyDeleteDid a bit of looking - looks like it used to be owned by the church, and was sold to CRB Realty (developer Charlie Brown) as part of a deal to build a large office town on the property. CRB closed on the property in 2008. No idea if the plan was to keep the building or tear it down, but my guess is to tear it down.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather was Harry Dwoskin, and for many years, this was his corporate headquarters -- the Dwoskin, Inc., Atlanta Showroom where fine wallcovering was sold to designers and to the public. I was very sad to see it torn down. Not just because it was the beloved offices of my family's company for many years, but because it was designed by Shutze, whose work should be better preserved in this city. He also designed my grandfather's home on West Sussex in Morningside.
ReplyDelete