“We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” Sir Winston Churchill spoke these words before the House of Lords after the British House of Commons was bombed in 1941. While 21st-century Parker and WWII-era Britain are not the same time nor place, the sentiment of spaces shaping their inhabitants still rings true. Parker’s history is proudly displayed on its walls. Simply looking up highlights the stories that have shaped this school, and how we can better progress as a community.
This year, new additions have been made to the walls of our school: a black and white photograph of students looking down a staircase, found hanging on the second floor of the southwest stairwell, and various paintings hung around the first and second floors. Both were put up by Principal Dr. Daniel Frank, who has been a longtime supporter of the physical appearance of Parker’s interior, contributing to student and alumni art installations for years. Frank found the photograph—which he says could be from the 1940s—over the summer, while looking through the school’s archives. “The thought process behind putting it into the stairwell was that more to sort of call back to our earlier roots a little bit,” he said. “So, here’s a modern stairwell, here’s an older stairwell, still students … it was my own little aesthetic connection.” Frank says the photo was taken in the old schoolhouse, a wooden building that lay where Parker’s athletic field is now located.
Frank claims the paintings are a representation of Parker’s piece of the house mantra. The paintings were done by painter and career educator Richard Polsky, seven of whose grandchildren have attended the school. “I was contacted that he’s now taking all his paintings and gifting them to not-for-profit organizations that want to have art available to them,” he said. “Parker’s not-for-profit … and the art speaks for itself, right?” Polsky’s paintings are located in the SW stairwell, the Math Wing, and a portion of the Science Hallway. “As we are in a position to frame more—we have some additional ones—we’ll bring more beauty into the school,” Frank said.
Parker’s art and photographs have been witnessed by thousands of Colonels for generations. Essential installations like the student-painted tiles, courtyard granite blocks, and donated sculptures from Parker families and connections, have all become a part of Parker’s ongoing collection of showcased artifacts. Whether a student is involved in creative endeavors at Parker or not, their mark is intentionally left on the school. “By and large, the idea when the school was built was for the opportunities for student art displays,” Frank said, “and then over time, both students have created art, people have donated some art to the school, some bulletin boards are more informational, and others are display opportunities.” The origin of Parker’s famed tiles comes from the school’s desire to cover cinder blocks used in the construction of the new building in the 60s. “The cinder block walls that [were] used as a cost efficiency when the school didn’t have a lot of money and it had to rebuild from the old wooden schoolhouse to this brick building,” Frank said. “That’s where you see all those older colored tiles painted by students, for example, in the alcove near the piano or at the corner … behind those tiles is cinderblocks,” he said. “It brought in an opportunity to have student art cover the cinder blocks and start from there.”
Frank says we should be taking in the history of the school and making our own dynamic and expressive present with that knowledge. “It’s waiting for the environment to sort of penetrate that part of yourself,” he said. “Once some new thought occurs within you, you can make a change out there in the world,” he said, then drawing back to the mission of the school, to bring the outside in and the inside out.
The effect of one’s environment has a tangible and scientific impact on the brain. Upper School science teacher Bridget Lesinski claims it has to do with the familiarity of the space, why our model home can feel both comfortable and stimulating. “[With] my study of the brain, when I think about it, it’s always looking for patterns,” she said, “and so if a place is very familiar, your brain is not really having to work overtime.” However, Lesinski also hinted at the value of rotating art displays, as seen in the hallway leading to the auditorium and other spaces. “We also seek novelty, too,” she said. “We like to look at things that are especially visually appealing.“
Looking ahead, there’s no sign of Frank slowing down his efforts to cultivate a welcoming and living space inside Parker’s walls. Drawing a comparison to next year’s 125th anniversary of the school, “What are things that we’re doing right now in the here and now that are interesting, alive, engaging, noteworthy?” he said. “Tell a story about who the people are right now, not only the people who used to be here.” Lesinski also noted that the new expansion into the condominium development east of the school will tell much about Parker’s future. “It’ll be interesting the new space that they build, what the sort of vibe of that will be and what they want to put in there.”
“There’s a concept that the environment in which one lives teaches,” Frank said. “There’s always room for more, and for who’s next, and for rotating some of the artwork or photographs that we have in order to inspire the next interesting story or project.” All Frank, Lesinski, and Churchill noted how the building shapes the human, the former two, how at Parker we might progress with this knowledge.
