Riverside Bungalow - Calgary Board of Education

Riverside Bungalow School No. 2 is valued as a well-preserved example of 'bungalow' school designs. Unique to Calgary, the 'bungalow' school originated with the 'cottage' school in 1910, originally conceived by Alberta Public Works. The cottage schools were built as temporary and cost-effective wooden schools, which could be resold as residential units when their educational use became redundant. In 1912, Hugh McClelland, Calgary School Board's first Building Superintendent, established an in-house department to deal specifically with the planning and design of new schools. He hired William Archibald Branton, who developed the four-room bungalow school plan - a larger, more sophisticated temporary school plan than the cottage school. Like its predecessor, the bungalow school was designed for conversion into residential units. Prototypes were built in Ogden, North Mount Pleasant and Riverside in 1913.From 1919 to 1922, Branton designed a number of bungalow schools throughout the city, larger and more refined than the original prototypes. Riverside Bungalow School No. 2 is a good, intact example of this later period of bungalow school design. Typical elements of the bungalow school design were one to one and one-half storey massing, low-pitched side gabled or hipped roofs with central front gable, central entryway and banked multi-pane wooden windows to allow ample light and air circulation. In the interior, spaces were demarked by four symmetrical and often nearly identical classroom spaces on each side of a central hallway. Separate boys and girls entryways were accessed from the sides or rear of the building. Symmetrical design and Arts & Crafts detailing were central to many of the bungalow school designs.Riverside Bungalow School No. 2 is valued by the Bridgeland-Riverside community as the sole remaining school to originally be part of an educational grouping on this site. The school serves as a symbolic icon of the educational and social loci of the community. After completion of Riverside Bungalow No. 2, there were three schools on this site, stressing the high value placed on education in this small community. The site at one time contained Riverside School, a two and one-half storey sandstone school built in 1909, Riverside Bungalow (1913), the prototype bungalow school, and Riverside Bungalow No. 2, built in 1920. Riverside Bungalow was changed to Riverside Bungalow No. 1 in 1920 and later to Riverhurst Bungalow School in 1933. Riverside School, which was changed to Langevin Junior High in 1939, was irreparably damaged by a fire in 1966 and was torn down shortly thereafter.Riverside Bungalow School No. 2 is also valued in the community for its Arts & Crafts architecture and as one of three extant identical bungalow school designs including Cliff Bungalow School and Tuxedo Park Elementary School; all three schools were built in 1920. This design is distinguished by its symmetrical rectangular plan with brick cladding, side gabled roof, central front and rear projecting gable and banked multi-pane windows. Arts & Crafts influences are visible in the textured brick cladding, parapeted gables with corbelled flares, brick label mouldings and cornice and large interior brick chimneys.