Bryant-Webster Elementary School

Perhaps the most unusual school design in Denver, this Art Deco fantasy culminates in a five-story entry tower. Expressionist designs in the purple-brown brick subtly portray buffalo, kachinas, and other motifs found in Navajo textiles, Pima baskets, and Pueblo pottery. Other southwestern motifs such as the running zigzag patterns in the frieze and stepped diamonds are hallmarks of the Pueblo Deco style. The varied shapes and sizes of brick, requiring special molds and clays, were manufactured by the Denver Clay Pipe and Brick Company. Leone Bradbury painted an Indian pueblo mural for the first grade classroom, and an artist from San Ildefonso Pueblo decorated the burned clay tiles in the interior. This experiment in cross-cultural architecture, which originally cost the Denver Public Schools $250,000, including design fees, has aged well with the help of sympathetic additions.