Striking plan selected for Emeryville arts center
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
IMAGES
Jensen Architects' concept for the Emeryville Center for the Arts includes a glass-encased theater rising alongside an open-aired terrace within the shell of a former manufacturing building.
View Larger ImagesThe architect of the popular sculpture garden at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a new cultural gig: the new Emeryville Center for the Arts.
The board of the young institution selected Jensen Architects of San Francisco after a design competition among six small but well-regarded Bay Area firms. The goal is for the center to open the new $12 million complex in the fall of 2012.
"We want to move very quickly," said Sheila Bergman, the ECA's executive director.
The center will occupy the shell of a one-story brick industrial building at 40th and Hollis streets. Within it, Jensen proposes to carve an open-air terrace flanked by a three-story glass cube. The "tower" would contain a theater topped by a column-free space that would be available for everything from exhibitions to private events.
Besides compressing several uses into one, the idea of the cube is to create a visual symbol for the new city-backed institution.
"This should become a landmark beacon, even from the (Interstate 80) freeway," said Mark Jensen, whose firm also designed the graduate studios at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Despite a population of less than 12,000, Emeryville is one of the more dynamic cities in today's Bay Area - home to such companies as Pixar and Peet's as well as a large concentration of retail attractions. It's also become a hub for visual artists, and one goal of the center is to make that civic strength more evident throughout the region.
The board of the young institution selected Jensen Architects of San Francisco after a design competition among six small but well-regarded Bay Area firms. The goal is for the center to open the new $12 million complex in the fall of 2012.
"We want to move very quickly," said Sheila Bergman, the ECA's executive director.
The center will occupy the shell of a one-story brick industrial building at 40th and Hollis streets. Within it, Jensen proposes to carve an open-air terrace flanked by a three-story glass cube. The "tower" would contain a theater topped by a column-free space that would be available for everything from exhibitions to private events.
Besides compressing several uses into one, the idea of the cube is to create a visual symbol for the new city-backed institution.
"This should become a landmark beacon, even from the (Interstate 80) freeway," said Mark Jensen, whose firm also designed the graduate studios at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Despite a population of less than 12,000, Emeryville is one of the more dynamic cities in today's Bay Area - home to such companies as Pixar and Peet's as well as a large concentration of retail attractions. It's also become a hub for visual artists, and one goal of the center is to make that civic strength more evident throughout the region.
Emeryville Center for the Arts
More information on the center and design competition is at links.sfgate.com/ZKSL.E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/BA3C1GQ50H.DTL#ixzz188vLgbjz
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