The Clyde Fitch Report: In 2007, some very bright people at the University of Chicago decided to examine the recent cultural building boom, looking at the motivations, extent and impacts of the recent and massive wave of performing arts center, theater and museum building projects. The goal of the study was to establish a research base for anyone considering the development (or redevelopment) of cultural facilities. The effort came to be known by the name of its final report: Set in Stone: Building America’s New Generation of Arts Facilities, 1994-2008.
4 comments:
When it comes to designing and constructing buildings specifically for the arts there is one thing that I think is really important to keep in mind, and that is flexibility. Artists, as a whole, are always trying new creative things. They never know what is going to work and what is not. Their space needs to be flexible because it will allow them to do legitimately anything in their space. If the space is very restricting the artists will not be able to pursue their new really big ideas because they simply don’t have the space. That is why many theatres and studio spaces are designed to be able to change configuration and such very easily. This is because what works for the current project might not work for the next or the one after that. Basically, the more flexible the space is, the more new, innovative, and exciting art that can be created.
Having arts facilities take a major role in the architecture field is super important to me because I have been extremely affected by poor management of the building of new arts centers. In my high school career, I faced two remodels of performance spaces in my town - one in the town hall that used to be a useless space for open meetings, and my own theatre from elementary school that I was now designing in for my junior and senior year productions. Neither of these projects brought in theatrical professionals or even space performance specialists. The town hall ended up getting all white source fours, a small stage with only apron space and no backstage. The placement of power sources and speaker capabilities were also a problem. But they did manage to get the latest boards for controlling all these useless materials. The same thing happened in my auditorium, and we ended up with no access to above the stage floor to fix electrics, two separate catwalks and horrible presets (did I mention no lighting/sound booths so cables always impeded the audience?) I am very happy there are now legitimate sources on this topic so maybe less communities and programs will suffer from incompatible theatrical spaces.
I agree with everything that this article has to say. Even in Purnell, with all the facilities and awesome workspaces we have, I still have trouble navigating or understanding why the building's designer didn't make things more streamlined, or didn't add certain things that to me seem so necessary. I think, when designing an arts building, especially when it's a learning institution, you take into account the needs of the students as well as the teachers. It's the students who spend the most time at the school in studio--most of their college lives in one building. I wanted to come to Carnegie Mellon because in all the other theatrical design programs I had visited I had never seen a room devoted to the freshmen class like 33. I find it ingenious that it was made simply for the first years to have and love and pass down their jokes and insanities. It's the very small, very memorable details about arts buildings that make them lovable, and those intricacies come from asking students what they like most about their programs. If I was ever to design a building for the arts, I would make sure to go straight to the people who would no doubt be using and frequenting the halls I intended to build.
I love this article. Some of the coolest buildings built recently are arts buildings and most of those are preforming arts buildings. In an art building there are so few requirements for specific spaces but so many requirements in general that there is so much that needs to go into designing this type of functional building. Arts building need to be incredible flexible to adjust to different people, projects and any other factor that comes into play. Preforming arts buildings obviously need a theater and that theater can't have windows and must have the technical aspects but besides that a theater can have any architectural ascetic or shape. I have seen some really incredible theaters and some terrible brutus type theaters. A theater is such a source of entertainment and art that it is only fitting to have a structure that really emphasizes that idea. I once saw a theater at Rochester Polytechnic that was a sphere on the outside. That design worked really well because it was so not mainstream and abstract
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