Featured in Progressive Architecture in 1958, the Deigert & Yerkes designed Primary Day School in Bethesda opened in 1955. The stark white, sprawling hexagonal design with touches of–how appropriate–primary colors is hard to miss if you are driving on south on River Road from the Beltway.

“The school flourished, and in the 1950s it began planning for a more permanent home,” the school’s web site says. “A parent donated land for a school building, a local foundation awarded a grant, other parents helped guarantee a mortgage, and eventually construction began on a new school. In the fall of 1955, Primary Day welcomed the first students to its new campus on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland. It remains the school’s home today.”

David Norton Yerkes and Robert C. Deigert were partners their leading modernist firm from the mid-1940s to mid-1960s. They also designed the National Arboretum Administration Building and the contemporary neighborhoods of Manor Woods, Wessynton and Truro. They also designed this round elementary school in Wheaton.