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September 26, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ARCHITECTURAL EXHIBITION
OPENS
AT SMITH COLLEGE OCT. 14
"The Future of Smith:
Architectural Works in Progress"
Highlights Smith's Distinctive Campus Projects
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.-Showcasing three
of Smith College's major building projects, along with its campus
master plan for landscaping, "The Future of Smith: Architectural
Works in Progress" will be on display Oct. 14 Nov.
20 in the Jannotta Gallery of the college's new Brown Fine Arts
Center, located on Elm Street at Bedford Terrace.
The exhibition is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible.
Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday;
8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday; and noon
to midnight Sunday.
Curated by Smith alumna and art historian Janice Carlson Oresman,
the show features architectural drawings and models of the Brown
Fine Arts Center, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects;
the Campus Center, designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects; and
the addition to the Lyman Conservatory, designed by Perry Dean
Rogers| Partners Architects.
The show also includes significant recent updates by the firm
of Towers|Golde to the campus' original landscape master plan,
which was developed by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted in 1892.
"Over the next year, Smith is anticipating the completion
of a number of exciting new architectural projects," Oresman
notes. "As this exhibition shows, each of them reflects
the contemporary era while paying homage to the campus' historic
surroundings."
The Brown Fine Arts Center
Polshek Partnership Architects' design for the Brown Fine
Arts Center transformed the original 1972 building, significantly
expanding and reconfiguring it. The new facility includes state-of-the-art
technology, an auditorium, larger exhibition galleries, art storage
areas, a café, a museum store and more classrooms that
accommodate the study of original works of art. The college's
art department and art library moved into their spaces in the
new building at the beginning of the school year; the Smith College
Museum of Art will reopen to the public in its new home in April.
Polshek Partnerships' recent work includes the celebrated Rose
Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural
History in New York.
The Campus Center
With entries from Elm Street
and the interior of campus, Smith's first-ever campus center
will unite the academic and residential sides of campus, as well
as the town and the college, serving as a new hub for community
interaction. When it opens in fall 2003, the center will feature
a long, curved skylit gallery at the heart of its design, reflecting
the designers' vision of the facility as an en-route passage.
New areas include café-style seating and tables, an amphitheater
of steps, lounges, exhibition spaces, a bookstore, a mailroom,
a convenience store and a music lounge serving light fare and
beverages. Weiss/Manfredi Architects have won a number of national
and international competitions and were recently selected to
design the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park.
The Botanic Garden's Lyman Conservatory
The Botanic Garden's Lyman
Conservatory, a complex of 11 historic glasshouses, is undergoing
a major restoration and expansion by Perry Dean Rogers|Partners
Architects, a firm founded in 1923 and credited with building
designs for more than 100 academic institutions. When the conservatory
is completed this fall, updates and additions will include a
new classroom, research laboratory, offices, workspaces for planting
and a visitor's center. To respect the existing historic facility,
built over a period of 100 years, the majority of new construction
is underground. The underground construction has a "green
roof," which will be planted and used as a garden that is
reintegrated into the original Olmsted design.
The Landscape Master Plan
Designed by Smith alumna Shavaun
Towers of Towers|Golde, with Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, also a
Smith alumna, Smith's current landscape master plan expands the
historic vision of Frederick Law Olmsted while addressing the
aesthetic and educational goals of the college today. Recent
and expected updates to the master plan include pathway realignments,
new plantings and the strategic reestablishment of green space.
Towers|Golde is a site planning and landscape architectural firm
specializing in institutional and corporate landscapes. Among
its noted designs are three projects at the New York Botanical
Garden and the new corporate headquarters for IBM. The firm has
completed a number of museum and theater projects throughout
New England.
"The Future of Smith: Architectural Works in Progress"
is the inaugural exhibition of the Jannotta Gallery, given by
Smith alumna Deborah Ross Jannotta. It coincides with festivities
planned for the inauguration of Carol Tecla Christ, Smith's tenth
president.
In conjunction with the exhibition, three women architects involved
with the current projects at Smith will participate in a panel
discussion at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 16, focusing on Smith's
current "campus rebirth" as well as general topics
in the practice of architecture. The discussants will be Susan
Rodriguez of Polshek Partnership, Marion Weiss of Weiss/Manfredi
and Martha A. Pilgreen of Perry Dean Rogers|Partners Architects.
The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place
in Wright Hall Auditorium.
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