The art department has some big plans on the drawing board.
Over the next few years, the building complex that includes the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the College’s studio art facilites will be renovated and expanded.
According to professor John Pearson, co-chair of the art department, the demands placed on the College’s studio art facilities have risen dramatically in the past few years, rendering present facilities inadequate.
“The drive for this project was the fact that studio courses have increased exponentially in the past eight years or so,” he said. “In the past five or six years, we’ve increased [art] majors 250 percent.”
This has put a strain on the current art facilities and faculty, Pearson said. The current space, adjoining the Allen Art Museum, is already getting crowded. The problem will only get worse as the art department hires new faculty to meet its growing needs.
The move to renovate the art complex is also motivated by aesthetic concerns, largely because it is the first part of the College many people see upon arriving on campus.
“The idea was also to create a more presentable face [for the College],” Pearson said.
“Of course, all of this is going to be driven by money,” he added.
Considering the College’s present budget crisis, that may be a problem. Financial concerns have caused the team behind the project to reconsider the scale of the project. They had originally hoped to work on both the museum and the art department building. Now, Pearson said, “although the decision is still not totally made…[they are] leaning toward just the art department.”
The project began 18 months ago with hopes of completing construction by 2005. Since then, however, the pace of the project has slowed, and the time frame for its completion has been pushed back. Pearson attributes this change to the new Science Center, which he says has diverted energy from the project.
“Given that the science building took away a lot of attention for this project…the energy was not really focused on this new idea,” Pearson said. “I suspect it’s going to [take until] at least 2005 or 2006, even for the first phase.”
That isn’t to say that nothing will happen in the meantime. In fact, some changes are in store for the art building as soon as next semester. Over Winter Term, the second floor of the building will be renovated to house part of Oberlin’s cinema studies department.
The new building will be designed by the California-based architectural firm of Fred Fisher OC ’71. So far, the design of the building has yet to be finalized.
“At this point it’s still basically pie in the sky ,” Pearson said.
The art department is currently reviewing what form they want the overall project to take. After they have informed Fisher’s firm of their plans, the architects will come back with “blocking designs” — rough diagrams of where various parts of the buildings should be located.
The architect has already presented Oberlin with some plans. However, those plans were rejected, partly because they would have eliminated the courtyard at the center of the present complex.
Pearson recognizes that the architects face a challenge in designing the new building.
“It’s a complex client,” he said. “[Fisher and Associates] have to be sensitive to two architects of repute,” referring to Cass Gilbert, who designed the Allen Art Museum, and Robert Venturi, whose firm designed the 1977 addition.
Pearson is confident that the project will overcome such obstacles, however.
“It is my perception and the perception of my colleagues that the Adminstration is dedicated to making this happen,” he said.