Riverview High School opened in 1958 in Sarasota's developing suburbs as a campus of modern steel and glass structures set among tall native pines. Known internationally for its innovative architecture, it combined new educational ideas, building technologies, and adaptations to the southwest Florida climate. Its construction answered the pressing need for new school facilities created by the great post-World War II migration to Sarasota, as the Board of Public Instruction led by Philip Hiss developed a series of eight public schools with open, flexible designs for natural light and breeze. The largest of these schools, Riverview High School brought together 1000 students from a wide geographical area and helped shape the sense of community in the new Sarasota suburbs. Designed in 1957 by Paul Rudolph, who had begun his career in Sarasota in the 1940s and brought international acclaim to the area through modern architecture adapted to its subtropical climate, the school extended his ideas on an institutional scale with open indoor-outdoor spaces, sliding glass walls, concrete sunshades, and a large courtyard surrounded by colonnades and classrooms, a gathering place inspired by historic academic cloisters. From 1952 Rudolph practiced independently, rose quickly in the architectural establishment, accepted appointment to lead Yale's architecture school in 1957, and influenced younger Sarasota designers who became known collectively as the Sarasota School of Architecture. Much altered over time, the original structures were demolished in 2009 to make way for a school able to meet new educational requirements.