The Venice Beach Pavilion

In my photo last Thursday this structure was silhouetted against a dramatic sunset.  Today I thought I'd share it in it's daytime brilliance. The Venice beach pavilion is a great example of the local "Sarasota School" mid-century modern style. It was designed by renowned architect: Cyril T. Tucker and built in the early 1960's.

Venice had two major building booms with distinctly different styles of architecture in the 1900's one in the 30's with the originally planned Italian influence and another in the 50's and 60's that was very modern.  This pavilion is one of the best examples of the modern style in Venice Florida.

The pavilion features a dramatic hyperbolic paraboloid roof soaring over two low buildings of coral stone and a large open air area with tables for eating ice cream from the pavilion shop or playing chess, etc.