• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

The Broad Art Center has been under construction in North Campus since Jan. 2003.

The spacious and sunlit studios of the new and renovated Edythe and Eli Broad Art Center, scheduled to be completed this month, will not be teeming with students any time this school year.

Due to construction delays, the new Broad Art Center will not open until September 14, 2006, said Carolyn Campbell, Director of Communications for the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

The renovation of the Broad Art Center, which UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said will cost an estimated $52.4 million, includes structural, earthquake, fire-safety and accessibility improvements, as well as minor expansion.

The Broad Art Center, known as Dickson Hall prior to renovation, is located next to Melnitz Hall.

The center was designed by the architectural firm Richard Meier & Associates, the same firm that designed the Getty Center.

While the renovation will enhance the aesthetics of North campus, it is primarily designed to provide more flexible spaces for art and design classrooms, studios and offices, Campbell said.

“It will give students the advantage of a 21st century studio,” Campbell said.

While Dickson Hall was composed of small, dimly-lit classrooms, the Broad Art Center will have many open, sunlit spaces with good ventilation.

Campbell said this better accommodates modern art and design techniques, such as sculpture and computer-aided drafting.

UCLA art and design|media arts students have awaited the center’s completion since renovation began in January 2003.

“We all just want it to be done,” said Ana Hernandez, a third-year art student.

When the Broad Art Center’s renovation began, the art and design|media arts departments were both moved to the Kinross Building in Westwood, near the UCLA Hammer Museum.

Despite the Kinross Building’s distance from UCLA’s main campus, Hernandez said most art students are enjoying their temporary relocation.

“It feels like you’re at a private high school,” Hernandez said.

Alexis Disselkoen, a fourth-year art student, laughingly said the community at the Kinross Building is so close that art students named their senior art exhibition “Kinross High.”

Disselkoen also said she looks forward to the opening of the Broad Art Center so the art and media students can feel like a more integrated part of the university.

Eli and Edythe Broad donated $23.2 million for the renovation, as well as a steel sculpture by the renowned sculptor Richard Serra, called “Torqued Ellipse,” which will be placed in front of the center.

It is the first sculpture by Serra in any California public institution, Campbell said.

The opening of the Broad Art Center in September will be celebrated by an open house with a faculty art exhibition in the Broad Center’s new Whight Gallery, Campbell said.

The Broads have donated to various other organizations and universities through The Broad Foundation, which was established by Eli Broad.

His most recent donation was a $25 million grant to the University of Southern California to create a stem cell research institute at the school.