Metal roof panels bring traditional Southern style to city’s streamlined bandstand
Do a Google search on the history of bandstands in U.S. public parks and you’ll see these structures first became popular around the 1870s. As the nation celebrated its first centennial with a growing pride of place on the world stage, individual communities across the country wanted to place their own cultural stakes in the ground. Fanciful bandstands created the perfect stage for community musicians to entertain locals, with composers like John Philip Sousa providing the scores for weekly evening concerts.
This tradition continues today, though contemporary physical structures are often much more streamlined and the entertainment considerably more varied. That certainly is the case with recent improvements the rapidly growing city of Winder, Ga., has made to its own Jug Tavern Park. There, a new bandstand and matching pavilion structure now grace this popular public amenity, featuring a striking timber-frame design topped by a standing-seam metal roof. While the structure’s wedge-shaped, curvilinear profile is definitely present-day, the standing-seam roof is a clear nod to the element’s long history in rural Southern architecture.
Winder, located about halfway between Atlanta and Athens, has seen its population jump by 30% between 2010 and 2020, and by more than 75% since 2000. The park’s name relates to the community’s earliest roots – it was first called Jug City in the late 1700s when its population totaled all of 37 residents. Now its upgraded park offers improved options for local celebration as well as a venue for traveling bands like the regional favorite Swingin’ Medallions, who played a popular concert soon after the bandstand’s completion and the lifting of Covid restrictions.
Designers with Atlanta’s Collins Cooper Carusi Architects worked with Buford, Ga.-based Wormley Brothers Roofing to specify 3,000 sq. ft. of curved Tite-Loc Plus PAC-CLAD panels from Petersen to cover both the bandshell and the similarly styled pavilion. The .040-gague aluminum panels were finished in a dark bronze finish to bring a traditional hue to the contemporary-styled structures.
