Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Renovation Complete on Macalester College’s Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center

  • 01/06/20

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – A long-term renovation of Macalester College’s Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center (JWFAC) in St. Paul, MN, is now complete. Placing the values of a liberal arts education at the forefront of its master planning process, HGA, a national multi-disciplinary design firm, completed the last phase housing the Theater and Dance department in the spring of 2019. The Arts Center is part of a wider educational movement across campuses today, in which arts facilities help shape social change and inspire students.

Macalester’s new Theater and Dance department is located in the center of its beautiful urban campus. HGA revitalized the facility’s connectivity within departments and to the campus itself, ushering in a new wave of creativity and collaboration for students and faculty.

Macalaster College Fine Arts Center

Photo © Corey Gaffer Photography

The JWFAC is designed with an outward expression that integrates the three phases (music, visual arts, theater and dance), giving each a distinct yet unified identity. Each phase includes a featured façade with custom architectural expression related to the arts discipline within. The entry of the Theater and Dance building, for instance, features a flowing, perforated, custom-metal scrim façade that is internally lit, alluding to the movement, fabric, and theatricality of the performing arts.

The finale of this three-phase, four building project included demolishing the original 1965 Theater and Dance wing, and replacing it with a new three-level building. To foster interdisciplinary collaboration, the new plan takes advantage of adjacencies to existing resources within the complex, including the Mairs Concert Hall, the Law Warschaw Gallery and the Lowe Dayton Arts Commons.

Featured

  • Photo credit: Elkus Manfredi Architects

    University of Virginia Selects Design-Build Team for New Residential Complex

    The University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., recently announced that it has selected a design-build team for a new upper-class residential development on campus, according to a news release. Capstone Development Partners—in partnership with Elkus Manfredi Architects and the Hoar Construction/Hourigan construction team—will move forward with the three-building, 310,000-square-foot housing facility.

  • DFW-Area District Opens New Replacement Middle School

    The Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District near Fort Worth, Texas, recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new replacement middle school campus, according to a news release. The new facility for Wayside Middle School, originally established in 1964, was built on the site of the former district administration building and funded through Bond Proposition A in 2023.

  • Illinois District Boosts Security at High-School Stadium

    Richmond-Burton Community High School in Richmond, Ill., recently announced that it has completed the redesigned entrance to its high school stadium with a new focus on school security and community engagement, according to a news release. The district partnered with Wold Architects and Engineers on the project as part of District #157’s year-long facilities master plan.

  • Image courtesy of Kahler Slater

    UW–Madison Announces Completion of Morgridge Hall

    The University of Wisconsin–Madison recently announced that construction is complete on Morgridge Hall, a new academic building, according to a news release. The facility opened September 3 at the start of the fall semester, consolidating the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences into a single facility for the first time.