Take a good look at Wallach School.

That beautiful red-brick Italianate Victorian building (which exists only in black-and-white photos) was torn down in 1950 and replaced with the charmless, crumbling, prisonlike Hine Junior High School at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue S.E.

Today Wallach, with its graceful arches and its balance, would be considered one of the treasures of the neighborhood, another example of the work of that unrecognized revolutionary architectural genius Adolf Cluss, designer of the South Hall of the Eastern Market. Alas, the city chose to tear it down to build a “modern” school.

Just so, they tore down all but a few of Cluss’s more than 60 D.C. buildings, including 12 schools, churches, apartment blocks and private homes, to replace them in the main with anonymous “functional” buildings that are already ignored, scorned or forgotten.

Not only was Wallach (named after an early D.C. mayor) far more beautiful than Hine, it was built with the best materials, bronze hardware, slate steps, custom-made windows, ample decorative trim. It was Cluss’s aim to ennoble lesser public buildings and make them proud statements of the collective will of the community.

Cluss is ignored no longer, partly because of a gradual awakening to the beauties and qualities of the past, partly because of the nagging of historic-preservation groups, and partly because of a shining exhibition of Cluss work now opening in one of his finest buildings, downtown’s Sumner School, at 1201 17th St. N.W.

The Cluss exhibit commemorates the 100th year of the architect’s arrival here from Germany and is sponsored by the Charles Sumner School Museum, the German International Institute, the Goethe Insitut and the Smithsonian Office of Historic Preservation. It will run through February.

Sumner itself barely escaped the wrecker’s ball. In the ’60s, Washington became an artistic wasteland. Even Eastern Market was on the docket for extinction. D.C. thought the space would make a dandy parking lot.

The Cluss exhibit does more than extol his six remaining major buildings, which include Franklin School at 13th and K Streets N.W., the Arts and Industries Building on the Mall, Calvary Baptist Church at 8th and H Streets N.W. and the Masonic Temple at 9th and G Streets N.W. It opens a new chapter in the history of American architecture, filling, according to art-history expert Marc Fetterman, “the great gap between the builders of the Capitol and H.H. Richardson.”

Cluss, it turns out, was way ahead of his time, breaking out of the Victorian style, freely using what he wished of the past — such as rounded arches and encrusted towers, creating daring new designs with the red brick he favored, and in every building attempting to embody the practicality and philosophical importance of democracy. Brick, he reasoned, was the material of the people — he rejected the grandiosity of marble and limestone.

He was a radical, a communist who fled Germany, then in the throes of revolution against royalist regimes, at the age of 23 in 1848. His family in Heilbronn, Germany, was in the building trade. He came to Washington and through sheer talent became one of the city’s foremost architects.

“He wanted his buildings to have standing,” explained Harriet Lesser, exhibition coordinator, noting that Cluss’s ambition was to embody the principles and success of democracy in his art.

What was his first professional breakthrough? “That would be the Wallach School,” said Dr. William Gilcher of the Goethe Institut. “It was opened in 1864 at the height of the Civil War. It changed the way schools were perceived.”

Instead, we have the school nicknamed “horrible Hine.” And across from it, the serene Eastern Market South Hall survives and thrives.

Curiously, the North Hall is not by Cluss. That structure was designed by Snowdon Ashford, designer of many D.C. public schools.

NOLA residents find refuge in D.C.

New Orleans music storeowner Richard Turnbull, 69, was on the Hill last week, but not exactly of his own choosing.

Turnbull was one of the displaced New Orleans residents who, despairing of his submerged native streets near the French Quarter, got on an evacuation plane to D.C.

“There’s a lot going on down at the Armory,” said Democratic Party and Barney Circle neighborhood activist John Capozzi, one of Turnbull’s new friends here.

In fact, the Hill community has made a large effort to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Amounts of food, clothing and other necessities have been gathered to supply as many as 400 victims expected here.

As well, a job fair for the victims was organized last week, at which employers gave an enthusiastic welcome; Capozzi and Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B Commissioner Neil Glick helped prepare some 40 résumés for the New Orleanians and saw more than 20 accept job offers. The Capital Area Staffing Association organized the event.

“It’s a great thing to see people reaching out,” enthused Capozzi, who entertained Turnbull at his home and heard his story. “Hearing it from one person makes the difference.” New Orleans has strong connections to Capitol Hill, including the presence of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, daughter of former NOLA Mayor “Moon” Landrieu. Her East Capitol Street mansion at 4th Street S.E. is known as the unofficial “embassy of New Orleans”

Turnbull said he likes D.C. and may open a branch of his music business here. He will return to salvage what he can of his present store, which is still flooded. Even he, to his surprise, was offered a job.

New development pushes north of H Street

Jim Abdo, the self-confident developer who saw a 500 apartment complex waiting to happen in the crumbling Little Sisters of the Poor Convent (also the former National Children’s Museum) at 3rd and H Streets N.E., is close to finishing $150 million worth of construction.

But he’s also seeing his judgment — that the H Street neighborhood can become a thriving residential center — echoed by a new player who plans to build 140 condominiums even farther north at 3rd and I Streets N.E.

Broadway Development has bought the former Uptown Bakery property at 318 I St. for an astounding $7.6 million. The New York company is asking for greater density than area zoning allows as a tradeoff for offering units to low- and moderate-income renters.

A 140-car underground garage is planned for the project, architecture yet to be unveiled.

In the meantime, Abdo’s units are nearly ready for sale, and the Washington Business Journal reports that prices will start at $500,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. The Broadway project increases the likelihood that developers will continue to push toward the edge of 19th- and 20th-century row-house neighborhoods, clear up to Florida Avenue N.E., the logical boundary of an expanded Capitol Hill.