The North Building is a four-story building (including the basement level) which was the original building built in 1936. It consists of many classrooms, the main office, attendance office, magnet office, International Baccalaureate office, special education office, auditorium, band room, cooking room, and the choir room. It was built in a distinctive Art Deco style. The building was made of Texas limestone and the windows are the steel ribbon style. It consists of a single central block with the Ned S. Holmes Auditorium at the western end. The entrance to the theater is decorated by a relief map of Texas that indicates the state's mountain ranges and escarpment John F. Staub and Kenneth Franzheim designed it, while Lamar Q. Cato, Louis A. Glover, and Harry D. Payne assisted. An Italian American, Eraclito "Nino" Lenarduzzi, designed the map on the auditorium. Anna Mod, author of "Building Modern Houston", wrote that the theater entrance uses "a more monumental and severe Moderne style".