Corona School

Corona School

Built in the same year as the private, all-steel California Military Academy, this wood-framed public elementary school was Neutra’s first opportunity to implement his radical ideas on school design which he had been working on, beginning with Rush City Reformed, in the late 1920s. Education, particularly at an elementary level, could be the venue for reform based on sheer cause and effect: good architecture is the foundation for a good education. He rejected the model of the traditional monolithic multi-story volume and decentralized it in one-story structures one classroom deep, each bilaterally lit so lighting would be balanced no matter where a student sat. Nature had to be readily accessible and could double as outdoor classroom space as well, so the walls of every classroom could slide back to transform the space. Here at the Corona School the main block consists of five classrooms with another secondary block of two kindergartens at right angles to the main block.