In the past 72 hours, Tropical Storm Helene has killed at least 22 people. Houses, infrastructure, and roads in Florida have been decimated. Sanderling Beach Club, a 1952 building designed by Paul Rudolph in Sarasota, has also been completely destroyed.
News of Sanderling Beach Club’s destruction was shared by the Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture and Docomomo. It was wrecked by strong winds and rain the evening of September 26.
“We are absolutely gutted to see Paul Rudolph’s Sanderling Beach Cabanas in Sarasota, Florida have been completely destroyed by Hurricane Helene,” Docomomo said on Instagram. “This was the site of our first National Symposium in 2013. We knew this day would come but very sad as reality sets in.”
Paul Rudolph was 34 years old when he was hired to design Sanderling Beach Club by the Sanderling family, influential Floridian developers who built golf courses. The project on the Siesta Key became known for its cabanas with barrel vaults that go right up to the water. The roofs, Rudolph said, and their curvature were meant to resemble Gulf Coast waves.
A series of additions between 1952 and 1960 transformed the ensemble. Later, the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo, Brazil gave Rudolph an award for Sanderling Beach Club. The project also appeared in The Architecture of Paul Rudolph by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy and Gerhard Schwab, published in 1970.
Sanderling Beach Club was designated on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Today, it is unclear how much of the structure still exists, and if any of it can be salvaged. AN has reached out to Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture for more information.
The disaster happened just days before a major retrospective on Rudolph opens at the Met in New York.
