Montessori School Gym
Alcuin Montessori School
Dallas, Texas
View Project Photos
Architect: The Architects Studio, Dallas, TX; Art Rogers, AIA
Architect/Project Manager: Hawaii Island Architects, LLC, Keauhou, HI; Roger Brasel, AIA
The Four Seasons, Gymnasium Windows
Four at 4.4' diameter each
Iris, Administrative Offices
4.4' diameter
Stained glass windows in a gymnasium? Why not? Sill height is almost twenty feet and they’re installed behind protective Lexan. The administration building window has a more contemplative existence . . .
The gym windows at Alcuin Montessori School represent the four seasons. Color and abstract biological shapes provide the imagery. East-facing Spring contains an Germination and Emergence theme; south-facing Summer deals with (re)Birth and Flowering; west-facing Autumn with Maturation and Return; and the cycle completes with themes of Introspection and Isolation in north-facing Winter.
Iris is in the school’s administrative offices. Its design began as a reflection on irises, the residents of the site before the school was built. As the design evolved, amber “anthers” and “stamens” took on added meaning as “flames of knowledge” creating an even more appropriate welcome above the main entrance to this place of learning.
Art Rogers, Alcuin’s architect, recently sent me this poem he penned shortly after Iris’s installation:
AN IRIS SPEAKS
I saw an iris on my walk
And sought to stop and have a talk
for I had much to say
on that new and spring-like day
Cautioned to listen before I spoke
I knelt before the swaying cloak
of petals white above their stem
below the purple diadem
Fragrance was its only talk
So I rose and resumed my walk
For on this crisp and spring-like day
This iris had nothing more to say.
-Art Rogers ©2013±
OTHERS COMMENT:
Jeff Smith is a most important person to the (originally “St.”) Alcuin Montessori School. He designed and installed the stained glass for our present campus. Everyone — staff, students and visitors — comments on the beauty of these windows. Jeff is very good at his craft. I would recommend him unreservedly for any project involving stained glass.
Ron Ackerman, Director, St. Alcuin Montessori School, Dallas, TX
Materials: German mouthblown glass, lead and solder with protective glazing.
