Qualla: Simms School Building https://qualla.com/simms-school-building en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Simms School Building https://qualla.com/simms-school-building Simms School Building: Introduction https://qualla.com/simms-school-building/ Photo credit Youngamerican (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The floor plan is the strange part. Step into the Simms School Building in Huntington, West Virginia, and the corridor curls around you in a circle, looping past classrooms on three sides while an auditorium sits, like a hidden room in a riddle, at the center. Architects in 1919 did not often design schools this way. The building was finished in 1920, two stories of wire brick and steel frame done up in the Classical Revival style, with four limestone Doric columns at the front entrance and a second-floor porch tucked under a clay tile mansard roof. For sixty years it was an elementary school. Today, the circle inside still holds, but the children are gone.

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Image: Youngamerican (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/dnv6-simms-school-building-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Simms School Building: A Schoolhouse Built Like a Temple https://qualla.com/simms-school-building/ Photo credit Youngamerican (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. When architects working in the Classical Revival style sat down to draw a school in 1919, they reached for the same vocabulary they would have used for a bank or a courthouse: weight, symmetry, columns. Simms got the full treatment. The four Doric columns at the entrance are roun...

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Image: Youngamerican (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/dnv6-simms-school-building-a-schoolhouse-built-like-a-temple.mp3 0:06 2 full Simms School Building: The Circle Inside https://qualla.com/simms-school-building/ Photo credit Youngamerican (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The interior plan is what sets Simms apart. Most schools of the era used long straight halls with classrooms on either side - efficient, easy to supervise, cheap. Simms instead has a square footprint wrapped around a central auditorium, with a circular corridor running between th...

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Image: Youngamerican (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/dnv6-simms-school-building-the-circle-inside.mp3 0:06 3 full Simms School Building: From Schoolhouse to Apartments https://qualla.com/simms-school-building/ Photo credit Youngamerican (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. A 1964 addition expanded the building to keep up with Huntington's mid-century growth. But by 1980, Simms School had closed for good - one of many neighborhood elementaries shuttered in that decade as urban populations shifted and districts consolidated. The building could easily...

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Image: Youngamerican (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/dnv6-simms-school-building-from-schoolhouse-to-apartments.mp3 0:06 4 full Simms School Building: A Building With Time on It https://qualla.com/simms-school-building/ Photo credit Youngamerican (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk past Simms today and what strikes you first is the porch. From the sidewalk, you can see straight through the second-floor colonnade to the sky. Residents can sit there in the evening as if on the porch of a much grander house. The brick has the dusty pink-orange tone that w...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/simms-school-building-wp/dnv6-simms-school-building-a-building-with-time-on-it.mp3 0:06 5 full