This community was among many in Iowa to receive funding for school projects during the depression of the 1930s. At the end of this period, Thorwald Thorson designed a public school gymnasium of exposed concrete with a hooped roof. He had the end facade follow the hoop of the roof, and then he repeated this form through a series of lines that formed open Vs terminating in a central vertical panel. The lettering style and the graphic layout of this vertical panel are splendid. Thorson placed the date “1940” at the top, and below, in letters interspersed with rows of dots and dashes, he laid out a quotation from Goethe: “One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.”
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Public School Gymnasium
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