Walker School 1915

Walker School 1915. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. , Concord's growth at the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, fueled in large part by the city's prosperous and varied industries, compelled a major campaign to build civic buildings. Within twenty-five years, the school district erected eleven new schoolhouses. Walker School, constructed in 1915, was the last of that wave. , The Board of Education resolved to "build a new school building… sufficiently monumental to properly mark the spot where the legislature of this state ratified the constitution of the United States.” It engaged Concord native and MIT graduate Huse Templeton Blanchard of New York City to prepare plans and local contractor Hutchinson Building Company to construct the school. , The new school featured modern, fireproof construction through brick walls, steel framing, concrete floors, partitions of brick and hollow tile, staircases built of steel and concrete, and limiting the use of wood to interior finishes. Its four doorways solved concerns for safe emergency exits. Inside, the building had twelve classrooms, plus a large kindergarten class within the prominent bowed front wall on the first floor and a 500-student auditorium above. , Walker School is a vernacular interpretation of the Beaux-Arts architectural style – a formal, classical style favored for public buildings. The edifice expresses the style through its rigidly symmetrical design, arched window openings, paired pilasters, doorways capped with pediments, quoins at corners and extensive use of diamond, circular and swag motifs. , Walker School closed in June, 2012. In 2013 Binnie Media purchased the building to convert into its radio and television headquarters.