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Surprise Your Eyes: The Brown Fine Arts Center

Inside space The new Brown Fine Arts Center celebrates and visually redefines the arts at Smith College.

The state-of-the-art facility, which expands and reconfigures John Andrews's original ensemble of 1970s buildings, integrates additional program elements including a 120-seat auditorium, galleries, art storage facilities, a café, museum store, three display classrooms, and a visual imaging center.

Polshek Partnership, architects for the Brown Fine Arts Center, are known for their award-winning work designing buildings for cultural and educational institutions throughout the country.

BFAC Enclosing the central atrium spatially unifies the Center while maintaining access from Elm Street to the campus. Inspiration for the building's formal articulation and material quality was drawn from the architectural context of the campus and the adjacent Elm Street historic district.

The new art facility has:

Expanded the previous complex by 35,000 sq. feet
Incorporated a 7,000 sq. foot Imaging Center
Expanded and renovated the sculpture and printmaking studios
Created an updated photography studio
Provided an additional drawing studio
Added private studio spaces for honors students

The Brown Fine Arts Center expands both the traditional connections among the creation, study, and appreciation of art and the physical ease with which students, faculty, and the public flow among areas of study and the collections themselves.

Central supply areas for materials and expanded photography and printmaking spaces, together with new equipment, allow students to study both fine and graphic arts and the relationships among various media.