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	PLEASE PRESERVE OUR EXTRAORDINARY HIGH SCHOOL, Wellesley Historical Commission, The Wellesley Townsman, January 12, 2006 As members of the Wellesley Historical Commission, we are heartened by the community-wide interest in the future of our town’s outstanding high school building as demonstrated by recent contributors to the Townsman. One writer eloquently urges, “save our art deco high school,” and another noted, “our high school is special,” and it “needs saving.” Our commission is charged with the duty of ensuring the preservation of Wellesley’s cultural and historic assets. This includes protecting structures of architectural significance, and our nationally acclaimed high school building certainly qualifies in this category. The High School Facility Advisory Committee has prepared five options addressing the future of Wellesley High School, from which one will be selected. We strongly urge preservation of the existing original 1938 section, which includes the tower and the wings to either side of it Our extraordinary high school building is truly a landmark in our town’s history. It was considered so important from the beginning that a competition was held to select the design. The 1937 competition was won by the firm Perry Shaw and Hepburn, whose chief designer was Robert C. Dean of Wellesley. Robert Dean quickly became a full partner in the firm, which exists today as Perry Dean Rogers Partners Architects. His design was built in 1938, and his son Andrew Dean, also an architect, recently reported to us that his father was “very proud of that building” and “he considered it one of his best buildings. A prominent Boston architectural critic described “the General” (Robert Dean was a brigadier general) as “big” in the architectural field in his day. A graduate of MIT, he returned to lecture in its Department of Architecture. Other buildings by Mr. Dean in this area include the downtown Jordan Marsh and the Liberty Mutual International headquarters. Robert Dean’s original design incorporates echoes of New England Colonial design elements (his firm restored Williamsburg) with influences from the International and Art Deco styles. In a 1989 letter responding to questions from the Wellesley Historical Commission, Mr. Dean explained that he wanted “to find a style which would seem (perhaps in a subliminal manner) familiar to the pupils, the teachers and the citizens.” The result is a visually strong and unique building, creatively combining different traditions and very contemporary for its time. It received national accolades and was the first non-Georgian school to be built in the commonwealth (at least one other design submitted to the 1937 competition was in fact neo-Georgian). Mr. Dean’s letter contained a quotation from John Burchard and Albert Bush Brown in their book “American Architecture”: “Something a New England architect like Robert Dean, once a devotee to Williamsburg and then of Dudok’s Town Hall, combined the incompatible two in an extraordinary…high school as at Wellesley or a downtown department store for Boston. A great building is created when the genius of an architect combines disparate design elements into something totally new. This is what Robert Dean did. The high school building is characterized by continuous vertical windows which reach from the ground through the upper floors, and these counterbalance the strong horizontal massing of the very simple brick forms. This was very modern at the time. Colonial round windows rhythmically pierce the sold walls. Mr. Dean reports in the 1989 letter that the tower at the juncture of the two wings was intended, “to enable the people to locate the school from a distance,” and “as a symbol of a public building.” He uses the Town Hall of Stockholm, Sweden as an example of the latter. “The eagle weather vane was made just for fun,” he reports. Ornamentation on the exterior of the building is limited and simple. The letter “W” for Wellesley is found as a motif on the tower, and also on two stair railings. Below the window openings are, as described by Mr. Dean in the 1938 dedication program, “primitive symbols for the sun, lightning and clouds that suggest the forces of nature which the building must withstand.” Carved above the three doors of the main entrance are the seals of the United States of America, the State of Massachusetts and the Town of Wellesley. Robert Dean’s firm also designed some of the additions made to the high school over the years, including the 1955 wing, the 1961 girls gym and the 1963 cafeteria and classroom addition. He thereby sought to preserve the integrity of the original while meeting changing educational requirements. Under his guidance, and with the support of the town, the past successfully made the transition to the present. This needs to happen again today. Our high school has received accolades from the beginning, but it is not just a beacon of fine design. It has also served as a crucial center for our town, not only for its students, but also their families, the community as large and even for our neighboring communities. Among other activities, it hosts Precinct F votes there; the Wonderful World of Wellesley uses it; and the Wellesley Marketplace is held there. There are lots of issues which will influence the choice of a final option from the five currently on the table. Money must be spent wisely. Educational needs have changes. Greater numbers of students must be accommodated. The physical condition of the building has deteriorated. But tearing down this remarkable building in order to accommodate current educational requirements misses an important point. Our town’s history must be as significant a consideration in selecting a final option as the ones just mentioned. The past can, and in this case must, be brought into the present. An anecdote recently shared with us touches eloquently on the broader role the high school building plays in many of our lives. “I must confess that, though born here, I did not attend Wellesley High School. I only wish I had. This high school is an icon. Now, every day of the year, rain or shine, I walk with my beloved dog near the high school and adjoining athletic fields. And each time I do, I admire from various points of view the structure as it teems with life. And when I see the eagle weathervane atop the cupola of our high school I know I am near home.” Wellesley’s history isn’t a disposable commodity. Rather, it’s part of who and what we are as a community. Tearing down a historically significant building diminishes us, and we lose part of what makes us distinctive as a town. Recently we’ve had to say farewell to significant parts of our past, notably the building where Wellesley became a town, and the inn that has housed so many of our guests, fed our families and hosted significant occasions and rites of passage for most of us. Yes, we can build a new building we’ll be proud of, but we don’t need to destroy the landmark old one in the process. We can creatively join the past and the present, and in doing so, we preserve an important part of the fabric of our community. Please preserve our extraordinary high school building. This was signed by Wellesley Historical Commission members Linda Buffum, Chairman; Deborah Bates, Pierre Laurent, Helen Robertson, Joel Slocum; and Advisory Members Robert McConnell and David Wright.

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