flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Gothic-style dance center breaks ground at University of Southern California

Gothic-style dance center breaks ground at University of Southern California

The Dance Center will be the first new school on the campus in 40 years 


By Pfeiffer Partners Architects  | April 24, 2014
Ground was broken on April 23 for the new Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center on the University of Southern California campus. Named for the donor, philanthropist Glorya Kaufman, the Center will be a home for dance education on the West Coast and the Pacific Rim. The endowment will fund the building and establish a bachelor of fine arts program combining dance instruction with business training and a liberal arts education.
 
Pfeiffer Partners is designing the building for the school, the first new school on the campus in 40 years, beginning with a concept design, a feasibility study and programming. The design team, USC faculty and leadership of the new school are working together to craft a new facility that physically and aesthetically connects to the rest of campus and reflects the University’s master plan goals and aspirations for the new school. The program for the three-story building will include a dance/performance studio, five dance studios, instructional classrooms, performer support spaces, costume storage, and faculty and administrative offices. The project also includes a significant outdoor courtyard in which the campus community can meet, interact and study in an environment that fosters creativity and innovation in teaching and dance. 
 
Prominently located near the Thornton School of Music, on West 34th Street at Watt Way, will function as a key transitional building from the main campus to the future university village being developed across Jefferson Boulevard. The center’s proximity to downtown Los Angeles’ Music Center, where Kaufman has sponsored several dance performances, will strengthen the whole area’s draw as a cultural destination.
 
One primary goal of the design is to achieve a contemporary building that reflects the University’s historic architectural precedents, rooted in Romanesque traditions and Collegiate Gothic style, with authenticity rather than mimicry of the past. Conceptually, the design presents a dynamic, highly contemporary dance facility clothed in tradition. 
 
 
“The building derives its strengths from the principles of traditional Gothic architecture, but is also inspired by Venetian Gothic vernacular. The building’s massing is broken into its components: five major dance studios and a dance performance room, which is expressed in the architecture of the fenestration and hierarchy of forms; large Gothic arched openings introduce generous amounts of natural light into the spaces as well as create monumental openings for major and minor entries into the building. The skin of the building will be Roman brick with large expanses articulated with a diaper pattern. The building’s floor-to-ceiling windows and detailed articulation of precast concrete will extend the richness of the campus’ architectural language to the street for the first time along Jefferson Boulevard,” explains Project Director William Murray, AIA, Principal with Pfeiffer Partners. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Related Stories

| Oct 30, 2013

15 stellar historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and renovation projects

The winners of the 2013 Reconstruction Awards showcase the best work of distinguished Building Teams, encompassing historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and renovations and additions.

| Oct 30, 2013

Steven Holl selected for Culture and Art Center in Qingdao, besting Zaha Hadid, OMA

Steven Holl Architects has been selected by near unanimous jury decision as the winner of the new Culture and Art Center of Qingdao City competition, besting OMA and Zaha Hadid Architects. The 2 million-sf project for four museums is the heart of the new extension of Qingdao, China, planned for a population of 700,000.

| Oct 30, 2013

11 hot BIM/VDC topics for 2013

If you like to geek out on building information modeling and virtual design and construction, you should enjoy this overview of the top BIM/VDC topics.

| Oct 29, 2013

BIG opens subterranean Danish National Maritime Museum [slideshow]

BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) has completed the Danish National Maritime Museum in Helsingør. By marrying the crucial historic elements with an innovative concept of galleries and way-finding, BIG’s renovation scheme reflects Denmark's historical and contemporary role as one of the world's leading maritime nations.

| Oct 28, 2013

Urban growth doesn’t have to destroy nature—it can work with it

Our collective desire to live in cities has never been stronger. According to the World Health Organization, 60% of the world’s population will live in a city by 2030. As urban populations swell, what people demand from their cities is evolving.

| Oct 23, 2013

Gehry, Foster join Battersea Power Station redevelopment

Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have been selected to design a retail section within the £8 billion redevelopment of Battersea Power Station in London.

| Oct 18, 2013

Meet the winners of BD+C's $5,000 Vision U40 Competition

Fifteen teams competed last week in the first annual Vision U40 Competition at BD+C's Under 40 Leadership Summit in San Francisco. Here are the five winning teams, including the $3,000 grand prize honorees.

| Oct 18, 2013

Researchers discover tension-fusing properties of metal

When a group of MIT researchers recently discovered that stress can cause metal alloy to fuse rather than break apart, they assumed it must be a mistake. It wasn't. The surprising finding could lead to self-healing materials that repair early damage before it has a chance to spread. 

| Oct 7, 2013

10 award-winning metal building projects

The FDNY Fireboat Firehouse in New York and the Cirrus Logic Building in Austin, Texas, are among nine projects named winners of the 2013 Chairman’s Award by the Metal Construction Association for outstanding design and construction.

| Oct 4, 2013

Nifty video shows planned development of La Sagrada Familia basilica

After 144 years, construction on Gaudi's iconic Barcelona edifice is picking up speed, with a projected end date of 2026. 

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category


Museums

UT Dallas opens Morphosis-designed Crow Museum of Asian Art

In Richardson, Tex., the University of Texas at Dallas has opened a second location for the Crow Museum of Asian Art—the first of multiple buildings that will be part of a 12-acre cultural district. When completed, the arts and performance complex, called the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, will include two museums, a performance hall and music building, a grand plaza, and a dedicated parking structure on the Richardson campus.



halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021