Summary
When the city hired BOORA to lead the design of its arts center, working with landscape architect Martha Schwartz Partners and executive architect DWL Architects + Planners, the community and the design team quickly recognized that the design would need to "be focused on the idea of the arts center as a landscape, not simply a building," according to Gerry Fafhauer, who championed the development of the Mesa Arts Center and served as its executive director for more than 20 years. In addition to the performance hall for national and international touring acts and local and regional arts organizations, to be completed as the first phase, the development will include a 750-seat theater, an education building housing a visual arts gallery, several arts education classrooms, a smaller 200-seat studio theater, sculpture gardens, an amphitheater, and a festival street, in addition to circulation provided by perimeter roadways and a network of pedestrian paths.
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Extract
From Crabgrass to Art Glass
Major new open space projects called "arts parks" will make two suburban communities in Arizona and Texas better known for art glass than crabgrass. In Mesa, Ariz., the opening of the $70 million Mesa Arts Center in 2005 secured the city bragging rights for creating the largest arts center in the state -larger than any complex in nearby Phoenix, a city three times Mesa's size.
At the heart of the city-owned Mesa Arts Center, a dramatic new park called the Shadow Walk encourages artists working inside the building's studios and theaters to step outside-under palm fronds and beside an arroyo water feature-for amphitheater performances, plein air painting, outdoor kiln firing and late-night glass...See the full content of this document
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