Tom Kundig: Sun Valley Center for the Arts building - Text/Images received 130607:

ARCHITECT TOM KUNDIG PRESENTS DESIGN FOR NEW BUILDING FOR THE SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS

Lantern-like Design for New Arts Center to be a Glowing Beacon for the Community



SEATTLE – Architect Tom Kundig, principal of the Seattle-based architecture firm, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, has revealed his schematic designs for a new building for The Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, Idaho. A cultural hub for the community, the new building is intended to function as a welcoming place for everyone to experience the arts. The two-storey, 43,000 square foot museum-quality exhibition space will include galleries for rotating exhibitions, a 240-seat state-of-the-art auditorium, expanded classrooms, a public resource center, offices and reception areas, an underground parking garage, and a multi-use landscaped park-like outdoor area.

With respect for the environment, Kundig’s projects consistently reveal his reverence for materials, while combining art, craft and the experience of built space. To give form to The Center’s mission, Kundig crafted a design concept based upon transparency and flexibility. The highly inventive structure features an exterior that is largely transparent on street level and a wrap-around wooden sun-screen that incorporates operable shutters to control light. Movable gallery walls can be rearranged so that curators can adapt the space to their vision for each exhibition. Kundig’s design will give views into the lobby and galleries and at night The Center will glow from the inside out. People passing by will see an ever-changing, intriguing internal landscape.

“It’s going to be an incredibly beautiful addition to downtown. The appearance of the building from the street will be constantly changing as what’s going on inside changes, as the weather changes, as day turns to night,” says Center Executive Director Sam Gappmayer.



The building’s design employs the unique melding of industrial sensibilities and materials with an intuitive understanding of scale that is characteristic of many of Kundig’s highly lauded residential projects. The exterior will be a mix of reclaimed brick, in homage to the historical nature of the community, plus wood, Cor-ten steel and extensive panels of glass. Inside, the building’s open design leaves visible structural elements like pillars and diagonal steel supports. Outside, the angled roof gently mimics the slopes of the mountains behind it, drawing the eye upwards. On the north side, an attractively landscaped outdoor area accommodates sculpture, small performances and outdoor films as well as providing room for classes to work directly from nature. With his signature style of making, Kundig has created a cultural gathering space whose architecture has an indelible connection to the art it will house, the community it will serve and the landscape it evokes.

Tom Kundig was chosen as the architect for the new Sun Valley Center for the Arts after an extensive local and national search. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2008 with the building slated to open in 2010.



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