27 April 2012

bridge near North High School

I forgot to post this as a follow-up to my recent sketch of my parents' high school. These are some of the motifs from the near-by bridge, which was designed by the same local architect.

The Art Deco style high school was built in 1929 and has extensive use of terra cotta tile. This bridge wasn't built until 1932, during the Great Depression --- not so much money around then. But they found ingenious ways around that to make the bridge match the building. They used something called "Carthalite", a colored cast concrete, instead of terra cotta tile. The process seems to have only been used in the Wichita area.

Recently the bridge underwent major renovation / repair, but they were careful to keep it as originally designed --- a call went out for donations of vintage colored glass to be used to replicate the Carthalite. And they even replaced the real brick pavement instead of using asphalt.

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