Once William H. McGuffey Primary School, the brick building you face is now the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Built in 1915-1916, this two-story, rectangular Colonial Revival building wears its history in brick and slate. Single-story Tuscan order porticos project from each side elevation and from the front façade, and a slate-covered, low-pitched hipped roof caps the form.
It was named for William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873), author of the first standard U.S. reader series, a staunch advocate of public education and a University of Virginia professor of moral philosophy. The school served the public until it ceased to be a public school in 1973. In October 1975 the building reopened as an artist-run cooperative art center, and today it features rotating exhibitions for local and national artists.
The structure’s civic life was recognized again when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Brickwork, projecting Tuscan porticos, and a slate roof hold the school's civic past inside the Charlottesville and Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District, where education and art now share one building.