This project proposes a performing arts center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a 170-year old industrial city. As part of the city revitalization, the design seeks to build up a "stage", and create a piece of edge at the city's northern boundary. Two folded bands, one made of skeletal steel and surfaced with copper connecting the river and the mountainous landscape beyond with the city, the other made of reinforced concrete folded to form a spatial intersection housing a series of activities: performing, spectating, and exhibiting. A curved metal screened circulation wall opens at the bottom to allow the copper band to pass as an entrance into the lobby to develop its folded intersection. Through it, an industrial stack in the middle of the site is isolated from busy city, and anchored with the building as a monument. Along the west side, an additional element characterized as the education box hovers over the ground, with unobstructed views of the river and the old steel bridge on one end, and the green hill on the other. / Master of Architecture

Jules Andre Smith was an architect and an artist with an aspiration to build a retreat where artists could explore and develop new ideas. In the late 1930s, due to the generosity of a benefactor named Mary Louise Curtis Bok, Smith embarked upon an undertaking that fulfilled his ambition. He created a legacy known first as The Research Studio and later as the Maitland Art Center. The intent of this thesis is to document and journey through Smith's legacy, and answer the following two questions: What is the symbolic meaning behind the imagery? Why design six acres of architecture dominated by Mesoamerican and Christian-influenced iconography? The data collection process consisted of interviews; reviews of the City of Maitland council meeting minutes; readings of court documents, newspaper articles, and books in Smith's personal library along with a literature review related to the iconography surrounding the walls and floors of Smith's compound. Interviews with those who knew Smith consisted of open-ended questions related to Smith's character, his association with the artists, his work habits, his reasoning for choosing the unlikely mix of Christian and Mesoamerican-influenced art, and the artist-in-residence experience. A recap of the meetings was mailed to each of the parties consulted for verification of the content. The judicial system played a crucial role in mapping Smith's legacy following his death when an unfortunate set of circumstances found his work the object of three legal proceedings in Orange County, Florida. To unravel all the charges and the final judgments, hundreds of microfiche records were reviewed and eighty pages printed for re-review before completing the section of this document pertaining to the legalities surrounding the facility's future. Over 100 newspaper articles were catalogued and coded based on their relevant time periods. Collectively, they contained information related to Smith's early years in the Maitland-Winter Park area, events leading up to the building of his artists' retreat, and the fate of the vision following Smith's death. Before I began a literature review to decipher the meaning behind the sculptures and reliefs, I photographed and categorized many of the images by subject. This process included reviews of over sixty books and articles. Additionally, an expert in the field of Mesoamerican culture, Dr. Arlen Chase, was consulted regarding some elements of the iconography. Preceding my conclusions, the reader is given a tour of the grounds followed by a comparison of the imagery to the appropriate cultural representations.

For any artist, imagination is a powerful and necessary instrument for everyday creation. It is like a magical engine that drives the artist forward. But what is imagination? How do we keep this engine running nonstop? According to the Italian philosopher Giovan Battista Vico, imagination is nothing but extended or compounded memory, imagination is nothing but the springing up of reminiscences, and ingenuity or invention is nothing but the working over of what is remembered.So we can easily understand that people create or invent things out of what they have seen, what they have experienced, and what they have engaged with their own bodies. In my thesis, I'm not competing with the artists in imagination or creation, but I'm trying to offer them this architectural environment that would be transfigured into memory through senses. The artists living and working in this tower building are encouraged to move vertically through stairways and vertically aligned public spaces. By engaging the body and senses in this vertical movement, the artists would find their way out of the urban canyon to the sky of imagination. They would also be able to live lightly above the bustling world of reality. / Master of Architecture

Drawing from ongoing revitalization initiatives in Richmond, Virginia, this adaptive reuse project creates a structured dialogue between public and private expression to create a more immersive gallery experience for viewer and practitioner. The gallery experience is twofold; traditional object-based display and nontraditional process-based display. Preservation of the historic fabric of the existing Handcraft building at 1501 Roseneath is integrated with the transformative potential of introducing voyeuristic opportunities in creating a community arts center. Notions of voyeurism will center around ideas of visual connection and physical separation. This project questions if tactics of voyeurism, which inherently create physical barriers, can facilitate interaction and encourage co-creation in a creative setting. Structured moments of intimacy and control are accomplished through presented and found views of movement, object, and process. These moments of intimacy and control create a conceptual reciprocity which guides the design of this project. Ultimately, the redesign creates a dialogue between the process of making and the final product/object by facilitating interaction between the viewer and practitioner through different points of the creative process. The project moves away from exploiting the site’s formal, historical, and contextual components and encourages the audience member to engage with the maker through a corporeal, experiential encounter. The environment becomes a catalyst for cross-disciplinary creativity on an individual, group, and community level. The development of spaces that engage the creative mind and foster collaborative growth will serve the Richmond arts community and can act as an icon for successful urban transformation.

The aim of this this diploma thesis is to explore the relationship between the art galleries and the public. The key focus is to analyze indispensable approaches galleries should employ in order to survive on the cultural market. Firstly, the thesis discusses the economic aspects with the particular focus on the value added to the management and marketing of galleries. The next part deals with the social aspects. In addition to the gallery visitors and the influence of gallery interior on the visitor, the division of art on commercial and non-commercial sphere is explored. Furthermore, the term "socially engaged art" will be specified. The final discussion then shows the previous research by presenting practical examples to illustrate the importance of the issue, particularly focusing on the Egon Schiele Art Center in Český Krumlov.

Taiwan's government will focus on investment in cultural and creative industries as one of the industries, developed one of the main directions of its development is the development of creative cultural park in this policy, the central and local governments are beginning to operate Cultural and Creative Industry. In Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung City Government Department of Cultural Affairs to use the second channel connecting the third ship of the old quayside warehouse to build the Pier 2 Art Center. Opened nearly a decade, now Pier 2 Art District has become an increasingly diverse field. Pier 2 Art Center from actual observations, the researchers believe that quantitative indicators of the shape the impression is only the creative culture of a small part of the park should take a more open mind, diversity of point of view and to observe the creative and cultural in addition to the economy outside of the park for the inherent meaning and value.

The purpose of this study was to investigate instructional components that foster meaningful learning for adults with disabilities in a community-based art center. Through narrative analysis and case study methodology, the researcher examined the programmatic content of a single community-based art center--the Arc of the Arts Studio and Gallery (AOA) in Austin, Texas--from 2009 to 2011. Utilizing authentic instruction and constructivism as educational frameworks (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Newmann & Wehlage, 1993), the investigator proposed instructional changes to the AOA program that encouraged student-centered learning through discipline-based inquiry, maintaining real-world connections, and the active construction of knowledge. The researcher instituted a structured, arts-based curriculum based upon these educational concepts that infused lessons with illustrative materials, sequential learning, and public promotion of participants' finished art products in order to stimulate creativity and meaningful learning within the art center. This study scrutinized historical literature documenting art and general education for the disability community in order to examine the influence each historical orientation to disability had on art instruction for this population. Coupled with analysis of the programmatic structure of similar art centers around the country, this information facilitated a more full and rich understanding of how and why art education for people with disabilities is currently organized. The process of creating and implementing a structured art curriculum into the AOA studio addressed the ways in which meaningful learning may take place for adults with disabilities at community-based locations, and emphasized the need for further research into the quality, experience, and location of art education for the wide spectrum of people with disabilities. / text

Drawing from the ongoing revitalization efforts in the Western Massachusetts post-industrial city of Springfield, Massachusetts, this adaptive reuse project aims to bring the public back to the city center by providing a common space for cultural connections. Sensitivity to preservation of the historic fabric of the existing Court Square Building is blended with the transformative potential of introducing architectural expressions of dance theory to create a school and theater for the performing arts. The study of balance between opposing, yet complimentary forces, as they exist in architecture and dance, creates a conceptual interplay that guides the design of this project. Viewing the existing historic building as a dance partner to the proposed contemporary addition, leads an exploration in the tectonic translation of form, rhythm, weight, movement and breath, as elements of dance theory that are developed to represent the building envelope, structure, materials, circulation and openings. Ultimately, the adapted building creates a dialogue for the past and present city of Springfield, simultaneously honoring its unique cultural heritage and future potential in serving as an icon for successful urban transformation.

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The decision to build a new swimming hall in Visby at Gotland creates opportunities to reuse the old one, Solbergabadet, for another function. The new function, a Performance Art Center, opens up for a study of how a building made for a very specific function could be used for something else in the future. The transformation process brings up questions about material meetings and how the earlier function as a swimming hall could be a part of the new design process and architecture. By reusing a part of the interior structure as a stage and adding a new reusable structure that is more adapted for the new function, the proposal highlights the architecture of transformations of different types of buildings that also will be more important in the future. By this, the history of the building and the earlier function will still be alive but in a new shape in combination with components that the new function requires.