Arthouse at the Jones Center

By Ingrid Spencer

“The building is in a historic district but is not designated a historic building, so nothing was sacred. Still, preservation was critical to the organization and to the architects. Inserted within the envelope are an entry lounge, a video/projects room, a large open gallery, multipurpose room, two artist studios, and art preparation areas. The architects added a 5,500-square-foot ipé-wood roof deck for open-air performances, with a 17-by-33-foot screen that can be set up for films. Administrative office areas on the first floor were largely left alone.
The lobby, wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glazing, opens the building up to the street. LTL resurfaced the awning in plaster, shearing and stretching its geometry to continue it inside and to create an anamorphic sign proclaiming “Arthouse” on the street. A central stair with 21 L-shaped ipé treads over a diamond-polished cast-concrete base connects the lobby to the main second-floor gallery, and is designed so the first wood tread extends to the side to form a reception desk.

Rather than create a white-box gallery space on the existing second floor, the architects chose to let traces of the past — frescoes on the south wall, remains of the theater balcony, ornamental plaster work, and paint from the building’s days as a department store — remain, while the glass blocks lodged into the masonry bring light into the interior. Practicality suggested that the south wall be used for art, so a 16,000-pound movable wall was added inside the room to give the space more flexibility. The building’s original structure is a concrete frame with a steel-truss roof into which a concrete and steel deck floor was inserted during the Lerner years. When LTL decided to add a flat roof on top of the existing pitched-roof frame, the firm supported the new roof with steel members attached to the top chords of the trusses. To further help carry the load of the new roof, the team stiffened the trusses’ bottom chords with I-beams. This strategy allowed the architects to use the flanges
of the I-beams as tracks for the movable wall, which is operated by two motors.

Every space, from the elevator to the rooftop, is a place where an artist can interact with the building. The first show in the upstairs gallery did just that with the movable wall, which was pushed to the north side to display a huge drawing of 177 family recipes submitted by the public for artist James Middlebrook’s exhibit, More Art about Buildings and Food.”

Full article can be found HERE.

  1. fuckyeahaustin posted this

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