Sarasota Art Museum exhibit rediscovers a masterpiece of architecture

Victor Lundy is a modern architectural master. In the mid-20th century, he was one of the leading lights of the so-called “Sarasota School of Architecture” – our region’s take on modernist design for living. Galloway’s Furniture Showroom (1959) was one of his many local masterpieces.

16 parabolic columns sprang out from its center. These laminated, wooden beams supported a disc-shaped roof and a second floor mezzanine. The building’s exterior was a 360-degree curtain of floor-to-ceiling glass. The building was completely transparent. This “showroom” was a showroom indeed.

In the 1980s, Lundy’s masterpiece got covered up. Galloway’s Furniture had gone out of business. The Visionworks optical corporation bought the unused structure — and remodeled it beyond recognition. Slabs of windowless concrete replaced the walls of glass. Beauty turned to ugliness; openness became opaque.

According to architect Jack Whelan, the conversion turned Lundy’s soaring creation into a “giant lug nut.” And that’s the bad news.

The good news is, unlike so many of Lundy’s masterpieces, it wasn’t torn down. And although it had been covered up, it hasn’t been forgotten.

Lundy’s “lug nut” was directly north of the old Sarasota High School building. In 2003, that “high school gothic” structure was reimagined as the Sarasota Museum of Art. In 2007, that museum merged with Ringling College of Art and Design. The museum and college were now one. Both were equally committed to the legacy of modernist art and architecture.

Uncovering (and discovering) Lundy’s modernist masterpiece was an idea whose time had come. That idea drove the structure’s purchase in the first place. But how to bring it back to life?

An exhibition seemed the logical first step.

Show Sarasota what it had been missing. Then take it from there …

Plans had been long in the making, though the exhibition was delayed by the pandemic. In 2024, it finally comes to life. But it’s hardly a one-person show.

The exhibition was co-curated by Marty Hylton, the president of Architecture Sarasota; architect Damien Blumetti; and Dr. Sujin Kim, an assistant professor of architecture at Hampton University, a historically Black college in Hampton, Virginia; Graphic designer Craig Byers and research director Christine Zadina also contributed to the project.

“It really took a village to put this together,” notes Hylton. “It was truly a collaborative effort.”

He adds that the exhibition tells the story of Lundy’s masterpiece with images, drawings, photos and digital recreations.

“We grounded the exhibition in the history of the Sarasota School,” Hylton says. “It’s about what was. But it’s also about what could be.”

Architecture Sarasota’s Hub initiative uses Sarasota’s structures as rehabilitation case studies for architecture and design students from around the nation. That’s how Kim and his students got involved.

Last spring, Kim got a first-hand look with 13 undergraduate students from his architecture studio course at Hampton University.

“When we visited the site in person, it seemed worse than they’d imagined,” Kim says. “Visionworks had converted the second floor to an attic, where you could still see elements of the original structure. Some portions were damaged, but much of it was intact.”

Once the students saw that, they could see there was hope.

After that initial visit, Kim and his students painstakingly scanned the structure with LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). Armed with this data, the students then brainstormed proposals for the building’s adaptive re-use. The co-curators had also renamed it as the Lundy Pavilion.

“We had five student teams, and they had many different ideas for the Lundy Pavilion,” Kim says. “We narrowed it down to five proposals, which we’ll display in the exhibition.”

A children’s museum? A modernist architectural gallery?

Those are just some of the possibilities.

Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday

Victor Lundy at 100: See seven of his landmark Sarasota buildings

While Kim’s students dreamed of the Lundy Pavilion’s alternate futures, Blumetti vividly reimagined its past. Using Rhino and Grasshopper software, he created a high-resolution, 3-D model of Lundy’s original “showroom” as it would’ve appeared in 1959. Blumetti’s digital recreation will be projected on the walls in this exhibition.

It is not a static image, but rather a highly realistic walkthrough from the ground floor to the floating stairway and up. Hylton describes the experience as “breathtaking.” Blumetti deflects the honor from himself and gives it back to the original architect.

“Lundy had a way of undressing architecture to create a building comprised of structure becoming space,” he says. “With the former Galloway’s, someone came along and dressed it. It’s a privilege to undress the building once more.”

This ambitious exhibition makes Lundy’s futuristic masterpiece plain to see. In the real world, it’s still out of sight. The structure’s rebirth is still just a possible future. But thanks to this show, that future got a little more possible.

As first steps go, that’s out of sight.

‘Modern Masterpiece Uncovered: Galloway’s Furniture Showroom by Victor Lundy’

July 28-Oct. 27, at Sarasota Art Museum, 1001 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. 941-309-4300; sarasotaartmuseum.org

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Museum exhibit looks at ways to restore a lost Victor Lundy building