page_title: Hiss Residence
section_title: Speculative success
hierarchical_section_title: Hiss Residence / Speculative success
caption_attribution_description: English: Umbrella House - Exterior (Paul Rudolph, Architect, FAIA)
context_page_description: The Hiss Residence is a mid-century modern home designed by architect, Paul Rudolph. Built as a speculative concept home in 1953, the structure blends international style modernism with indigenous tropical design. It is among the preeminent works of the Sarasota School of Architecture and considered “one of the most remarkable homes of the twentieth century.”
context_section_description: Hiss located the speculative house on a curve on John Ringling Parkway, where it would be seen by both passers-by and the press. Within weeks of completion, several thousand people had visited the house, with more than twenty-five thousand touring it in the first year. The project was featured in House & Home, House & Garden, Sarasota Review, Architectural Review, Art and Architecture, and L’Architecture D’Aujourd’hul. It was unanimously hailed as a ground-breaking work of modern architecture. The house was also recognized as a significant technical advancement in forward-thinking passive solar engineering and urban design.
  Fifty years later, the Umbrella House was recognized by Architectural Digest as one of the most remarkable homes of the twentieth century. The American Institute of Architects designated the Umbrella House as one of the 100 Most Important Buildings In Florida. In 2018, Rudolph's Umbrella House was included in the book, The Iconic House: American Masterworks Since 1900.
  The Umbrella House represents one of the earliest and most influential works of the Sarasota School of Architecture movement, and helped pave the way for the development of Lido Shores and the surrounding islands as a hotbed of mid-century modern architecture, that now includes works by Tim Seibert, Gene Leedy, Victor Lundy, Carl Abbott, William Rupp, and Guy Peterson.
caption: Umbrella House - Exterior 
  (Library of Congress)
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