Broad Art Center to be “˜envy’ of campus
By Justin Bilow
Sept. 23, 2006 9:00 p.m.
For Mahyar Nili, being unknown and misunderstood came with the
territory of being a UCLA art student.
“Most people I’ve spoken to (who aren’t art or
Design | Media Arts students) didn’t even know that we were
not on campus,” said Nili, a fifth-year art student.
But that’s all about to change.
Art and Design | Media Arts students’ presence will be
hard to miss now that they have a new residence at UCLA. The Broad
Art Center (formerly the Dickson Art Center), in the northernmost
part of campus, is at last opening its doors to instruction for
fall quarter 2006.
The UCLA Department of Art and the UCLA Design | Media Arts
Department will finally have a permanent home after four years of
waiting, and with that, the chance to integrate their students more
into the UCLA community.
Although very few students attended the opening of the Broad Art
Center on Sept. 13, among those in attendance were architect Frank
Gehry, former Chancellor Albert Carnesale and First Lady of
California Maria Shriver.
This move onto campus has been a long time coming. In 2002, the
two departments moved out of the Dickson Art Center into the
Kinross Building and Kinross Building South in Westwood.
Although the move was significant for art and Design | Media
Arts students, it attracted very little notice from the rest of the
on-campus community.
Art and Design | Media Arts moved to the temporary Kinross
buildings after Eli and Edythe Broad donated $23.2 million to
construct the new $52 million art center.
The necessity of the Broad Art Center was actually the result of
Mother Nature.
The Dickson Art Center endured structural damage from the 1994
Northridge earthquake.
Although other buildings like Royce Hall barely sustained severe
damage from the earthquake, Dickson retained more minor damage
eight years after the quake but still needed upgrades to meet the
University of California Regents’ policy on earthquake
safety.
Along with the need for these seismic upgrades came the need for
resource upgrades.
“The seismic retrofitting (for the art center) became an
opportunity to enhance the building,” said campus architect
Jeffrey Averill. “The building has transformed with an all
new infrastructure.”
Among the enhancements to the building are the New Wight
Gallery, the EDA (experimental digital arts), multimedia labs,
larger studio spaces for students, updated classrooms and
galleries.
The Broad Art Center also is a model for sustainability on
campus, re-establishing the existing structure rather than
destroying Dickson to build an entirely new structure.
Averill said that natural ventilation coming through North
Campus is now used whereas the old design did not allow for
this.
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Just as the new sculpture in front of the Broad Art Center,
titled
TEUCLA” by sculptor Richard Serra, acts as a ballast for
the sculpture garden, the new center may also act as a ballast for
arts on campus.
“Other students will see different exhibits on campus
now,” Nili said. “Then, even if they’re not
studying art, those who are able to might take more art classes or
change to an art major.”
Even though art and Design | Media Arts have been off campus for
nearly four years, they have maintained their status as the art
“flagship” for the UC system and are among the top in
the nation for their respected faculty.
Now that they have facilities to suit the departments’
achievements, Barbara Drucker, outgoing chair for the art
department, believes that the center can only make the department
more prestigious.
“The Broad Art Center will stimulate even more publicity
(for the art department),” Drucker said. “Students will
see this ““ faculty will see this ““ and want to be
here.”
Fei Liu, a third-year Design | Media Arts student, has seen the
new center and does want to be there.
However, Liu is concerned that she will miss the Kinross
buildings because, unlike the Broad Art Center, which is on the far
north side of campus, the Kinross buildings are closer to an urban
environment.
“Kinross is more lively,” she said.
Drucker pointed out that being in the Kinross buildings did form
a closer relationship with the UCLA Hammer Museum but said that the
move to the Broad Art Center is ultimately a good thing.
For her part, Liu agrees.
“We have space now,” she said. “It’s
easy to get distracted at Kinross. The Broad Art Center will make
me more inspired because the environment is so
important.”
Now that the art and Design | Media Arts departments have
returned to campus, the Kinross buildings will be used for other
departments like the libraries, administration and research
activities while their facilities are upgraded, according to
Michael Olsson, director of space management and analysis at the
UCLA Office of Academic Planning and Budget.
Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams is excited to see the new art
center take flight and believes that it will be a wonderful
addition to the UCLA campus and community.
“(The Broad Art Center) will be the envy of every other
faculty member on campus,” Abrams said.
