Art Center Dialing Down in Pasadena
Art Center's Downtown Campus, located inside a former wind tunnel
Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design has always been ambitious about building. But after some pushback, it’s toning things down. Most architecture buffs know about the school’s iconic black steel hillside campus designed by Craig Ellwood, and its equally ambitious downtown campus designed by Daly Genik, located inside a former Douglas Aircraft wind tunnel.
But after its last director, Richard Koshalek, got pushed out largely for his super ambitious $150 million expansion plan, including a $45 million Frank Gehry-designed research center (many thought the school was putting more emphasis on facilities than teaching and students), the school’s new expansion plans, confirmed this week, involve renovations and smaller expansions, not big gestures, reports the Pasadena Star News.
Exclusive: Art Center Renovation Shortlist
A historic image of Ellwood's masterpiece for Art Center
AN has managed to get its hands on the shortlist for Art Center College’s renovation of its iconic Craig Ellwood building in the hills of Pasadena. Completed in 1976, the dark structure, with its expressive exposed steel frame and amazing glass and steel bridges, is one of our favorites in California, but certainly needs a facelift. According to the RFQ the renovation includes reshaping and expanding the academic building, updating it seismically, installing new sustainable energy systems, and improving its roof and glazing systems. The four finalists are…. drumroll please… Michael Maltzan Architecture, Behnisch Architekten (LA office), Barton Myers Associates, and Krueck + Sexton. That’s three local firms and a Chicago firm, Krueck + Sexton, that renovated a similar project: Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall at IIT. The winner, according to competition organizer David Meckel, will be announced early next year. Make sure to take a look at these amazing historic images of the building (including campus construction shots) below, from the Art Center exhibition Hillside Campus. Read More
Machines in the Garden
Inside Schindler's How House, looking out.
The MAK Center‘s Silver Lake/ Los Feliz house tour yesterday helped once again put to rest the fallacy that Modernist homes have to be cold boxes with no regard for their contexts. On the contrary, the homes by Schindler, Ain, Ellwood, Soriano, and Harris focus on natural materials and highlight their landscapes: framing fantastic views, incorporating secluded gardens, and opening up with cross breezes, open courtyards, and double-height windows. Our favorite houses, Schindler’s Howe House (1926, just painstakingly restored by preservationist Michael LaFetra) and Ellwood’s Moore House (1965), induced zen-like contemplative states with their breathtaking landscapes, light-filled interlocking spaces, and warm wood cladding. And who knew that Soriano’s Schrage House (1952) had a waterfall and a killer model train setup in its garden? Read More
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