Crow Island School in

Winnetka, Illinois Winnetka () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located north of downtown Chicago. The population was 12,316 as of 2019. The village is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of household income. It was the second- ...

, is an elementary school operated by

Winnetka Public Schools Winnetka School District 36 is an elementary school district based in Winnetka, Illinois, Winnetka, Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago that is due north of the city. The district is composed of five schools: three ...

. It is significant for its progressive philosophy and its International Style architecture. The design of its building was a collaboration between the Chicago firm of Perkins, Wheeler and Will and Eliel and

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

. It currently serves kindergarten through fourth grade students. The school was established in 1940-41. Sebastian Hinton's prototype " jungle gym" is located here, having been moved from

Horace Mann School , motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails , address = 231 West 246th Street , city = The Bronx , state = New York , zipcode = 10471 , countr ...

in 1940. The school was awarded the Twenty-five Year Award by the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

in 1971. It was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1990. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Crow Island School was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the

Illinois component (AIA Illinois).

Background

Progressive education Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pr ...

flourished in the 1920s and continued to develop in the 1930s. However, because of economic hardship during the Great Depression, few new schools had been built to accommodate the movement.

Carleton Washburne Carleton Wolsey Washburne (December 2, 1889 – November 28, 1968) was an American educator and education reformer. He served as the superintendent of schools in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, from 1919 to 1943 and is most notably associated ...

was a regional leader in progressive thought and, as superintendent of schools in

, sought to establish a new school. Larry Perkins, Philip Will, Jr., and Todd Wheeler had recently formed the architectural firm and this was one of their first commissions. Perkins was the son of Dwight H. Perkins, the former Chief Architect for the Chicago Board of Education; the elder Perkins designed two schools in Winnetka. The Perkins family had connections on the Winnetka School Board as well as superintendent Washburne. Although Washburne was interested in the firm's modern approach to architecture, he was concerned about their lack of experience. He changed his mind when Larry Perkins suggested a collaboration with Eliel and

. The Saarinens, who were interested in an innovative educational project, agreed for the two firms to collaborate.

Design

Perkins, Wheeler & Will was responsible for the bulk of the early design. They interviewed students and teachers about the project and sat in on classes. They had to design the building for the modest sum of $287,000 ($6,160,000 in 11-2022 dollars) in construction cost. A site for the school was selected on Crow Island, a high spot in the Skokie Marsh bordering the Crow Island Woods. The swamp was filled with landfill from two

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

projects in the area: the Skokie Lagoons Project and a track depression for the

Chicago and North Western Railway The Chicago and North Western was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over of track in seven states befor ...

. John McFadzean and Robert Everly were consulted to design a park-like atmosphere for the school grounds. The school has four wings emerging from a central building with common rooms. This design allows each classroom to have its own outdoor courtyard. Each wing also has its own playground, two of which feature experimental examples of a jungle gym. The Saarinens designed a hexagonal sandbox for the northwest wing. The main entrance is under a chimney overhang on the west, with an additional entrance for the kindergarten on the east. The one-story building is flat with the exception of a chimney emerging from the north face, providing a "fifth wing" stretching vertically. The school was one of the first to be designed in the international style of architecture in North America. Its aesthetics and form, although not its planning or educational model, soon became a template for mid-century and

factory model school "Factory model schools", "factory model education", or "industrial era schools" are ahistorical terms that emerged in the mid to late-20th century and are used by writers and speakers as a rhetorical device by those advocating a change to the Americ ...

s.''Why Don't All Schools Look Like This?'', Zach Mortice, The Atlantic CityLab, October 29, 2015
Retrieved 2016-03-28 Perkins, Wheeler & Will used the profits from the design to commission

Hedrich Blessing Photographers Hedrich Blessing Photographers (also Hedrich-Blessing) was an architectural photography firm established in Chicago in 1929 by partners Ken Hedrich and Henry Blessing. The Chicago History Museum houses the archive of the first 50 years of photograp ...

to photograph the building. Perkins & Will would go on to design over five hundred schools.

References

External links

{{commons category, Crow Island School (Winnetka, Illinois)
Crow Island School

National Register of Historic Places - Crow Island School registration form with detailed description

Chicago Reader article with detailed history and description

Crow Island School's virtual tour

Illinois Great Places

Crow Island SchoolSociety of Architectural Historians SAH ARCHIPEDIA entry on Crow Island School
National Historic Landmarks in Illinois Winnetka, Illinois School buildings completed in 1940 Eero Saarinen structures Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois Public elementary schools in Cook County, Illinois School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois

Background

Design

References

Further reading

External links