"Lean and clean" was the phrase Bill Caudill often used to describe CRS's buildings, especially in the early years when schools were the firm's specialty. The partners wanted their architecture to be fresh, functional, and unfussy — a Texas version of the famous Ludwig Mies van der Rohe aphorism, "Less is more."

Within the lean-and-clean mode, CRS had plenty of room for maneuvering. At first, the firm's schools tended to be relatively simple, mostly horizontal buildings. Avoiding applied decoration, CRS produced a planar architecture that reflected the influence of Bauhaus and other modern design sources. The extraneous was pared away.

In the 1950s, CRS schools often featured simple shed roofs, with windows placed to obtain maximum benefit from natural ventilation and natural illumination. All the early schools were one-story, and some had their classrooms in a single line with a corridor running along the side, rather than having rows of classrooms on both sides of the corridor.   >>>

This article is excerpted from The CRS Team and the Business of Architecture by Jonathan King and Philip Langdon, with permission of the publisher, Texas A&M University Press.