**UPDATE Sept. 19: This event has been postponed. We will post new information as soon as we have it.**
Join the North of Grand Neighborhood Association for a special presentation at Plymouth Place next week.
Raymond Hueholt, the building’s architect, will speak Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012, beginning at 12:30 p.m. at Plymouth Place, 4111 Ingersoll Avenue. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will follow his talk; RSVP by calling (515) 274-0438.
Plymouth Place was recently deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as an exceptional example of mid-20th century Modern architecture, a movement that was born of the desire to separate from the practice of designing from historical models and the maturation of the industrial machine age.
Now 90 and living in a retirement home in Urbandale, Hueholt worked for the firm Smith, Voorhees and Jensen of Des Moines as the project architect on Plymouth Place and is credited with its design. Hueholt states he was influenced by three major issues as he developed the building design: the first was the desire to impose as little as possible on the site and to retain as many of the trees as possible; the second was to satisfy the numerous HUD requirements; and the third was existing architecture, specifically Marina City in Chicago (1963, Bertrand Goldberg), from which he drew inspiration.
Construction on Plymouth Place began in the summer of 1966; and the building opened in the spring of 1968, seeking residents who were age 62 or older to fill its 200+ units.
Hueholt is also credited with designing the Des Moines Botanical Center (1979).