Linwood Junior High School

• Designed by: William B. Wiener Sr.
• Design year: 1948

Linwood Junior High School was the first large school designed by William B. Wiener Sr. For this facility, Wiener employed a finger plan which would experience nation-wide popularity throughout the 1950s.  The design of this school would be used by Wiener to inform the designs of J. S. Clark Junior High (1957) and Woodlawn High School (1958).

The school is principally organized using two parallel rectangular bars that are connected by a perpendicular enclosed axis, with the main entrance on the north end of the axis and a shared gymnasium on the south end. The main entrance is placed at the west end of a 2-story classroom wing with a continuous roof monitor on the second floor. To the east of the main entrance is a shared auditorium. Behind the auditorium are the band and choir rooms that use the auditorium for performances during and after school.

William B. Wiener designed Linwood with the major axes of the two parallel bars oriented north and south.  Apparently, the Caddo Parish School Board was lobbying for a school building oriented with most of the windows facing east/west. Thanks to a sun machine demonstration study performed by William B. Wiener and his associate Jesse O. Morgan, they were able to persuade the school board to accept the north/south orientation espoused by the architects.