Design
Barton Academy is three floors in height and is primarily constructed of brick which has been stuccoed and scored to look like ashlar. A heavy ground floor supports the main floor and the slightly smaller third floor. The building can be visually divided into a central block with a two-story, pedimented, hexastyle Ionic portico, five bays wide, with wrought-iron balustrades. A low-pitched hipped roof over this block is topped by a domed cupola that is ringed by 28 Ionic columns. The dome is surmounted by a lantern, patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. To either side of the central block is a plain section, three bays wide. Adjoining these plain sections are east and west blocks, also three bays wide, with each bay defined by projecting pilasters.
Barton has had many unsympathetic additions over the years since construction, resulting in an interior that currently bears little resemblance to the original plan. That plan consisted of a central stair hall with flanking classrooms on all three levels. The original wooden windows have been replaced by metal ones. Only the interior of the rotunda under the dome remains in its original condition and configuration.
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