Quick: Which state has the boldest architecture? Ohio didn't roll of your tongue, did it? But Bowling Green State University, near Toledo, just broke ground on a new building by Snøhetta. And that's on top of a slew of other works by contemporary masters, scattered around the state, including Coop Himmelb(l)au, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, SANAA, Zaha Hadid, I.M. Pei, Peter Eisenmann, Cesar Pelli, Robert Stern and Arata Isosaki; Rafael Vinoly is putting the finishing touches on an expansion of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Snøhetta's Wolfe Center for the Arts will be the new home of Bowling Green's music and theater departments; it'll also anchor the arts on campus, with theaters and performance spaces. Naturally, it's a fairly large building, at 93,000 square feet, with a cost of $40 million. The signature feature will be a stunning cantelevered awning, which visitors approach via a gently graded, grassy ramp. (Ramps being Snøhetta's signature.) The firm has been on a tear recently--they just won the Mies van der Rohe Award.
Coop Himmelb(l)au's Akron Museum of Art was the firm's first building in the U.S.:
Another first in the U.S., this time for SANAA and its ultra-elegant Glass Pavillion, at Toledo's Museum of Art:
Frank Gehry's building, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University (whose winding halls were incidentally blamed for a bungled SWAT raid):
Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Center, in Cincinnati:
Thom Mayne's rec center, for the University of Cincinnati:
And Rafael Vinoly's Cleveland Museum of Art, which opens this summer:
Sadly though, with the exception of the SANAA and Zaha Hadid buildings, many of the buildings by great architects have often been slagged as lesser works. But in addition to architecture, Cleveland in particular is trying to transform itself through sustainability. Anyone in Ohio want to explain why the state attracts so much high-end architecture?
Related: Snøhetta Wins Europe's Most Prestigious Architecture Prize
Related: Fast Cities: Cleveland
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, Technology, Design, Ohio, architecture, Snøhetta, Bowling Green, Snohetta, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, SANAA, Zaha Hadid, Rafael Vinoly, Architecture, Design, Visual Arts, Zaha Hadid, Sanaa |
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Recent Comments | 6 Total
May 6, 2009 at 12:40pm by Kirstin Labita
Ohio rolled off my tongue, but it's my home state and I went to University of Cincinnati for Interior Design, which is in the School of Architecture. Ohioans, in general, are open-minded and love to travel. Also besides UC, Ohio has other notable architecture schools such as OSU. Michael Graves and Philip Johnson also have buildings in Ohio.
May 6, 2009 at 12:48pm by Cliff Kuang
Thanks for reading, Kristin!
May 8, 2009 at 7:01pm by Adam Anderson
Surprised it didn't mention anything at OSU campus: Knowlton Hall designed by Mack Scogin Merril Elam Architects or The Wexner Center designed by Eiserman.
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Adam E. Anderson
Design Under Sky
http://www.designundersky.com
May 8, 2009 at 7:02pm by Adam Anderson
Surprised it didn't mention anything at OSU campus: Knowlton Hall designed by Mack Scogin Merril Elam Architects or The Wexner Center designed by Eiserman.
Ohio is my native state as well.
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Adam E. Anderson
Design Under Sky
http://www.designundersky.com
May 8, 2009 at 7:47pm by Pierce Inverarity
The University Circle area in Cleveland has buildings going up by Office dA, Stan Saitowitz, among others, which i guess helps balance the fact that they're going to demo Breuer's only skyscraper. UC has a slew of snazzy newish buildings including Eisenman's DAAP, and a campus designed by George Hargreaves. Toledo has a pre-Bilbao Gehry and has had two heralded landscape urbanism competitions, judged in part by Charles Waldheim. The design programs, OSU in particular, are well funded and keep a concentration of smart people involved in the Ohio civic scene. In particular OSU's Jeff Kipnis had his hand in most of these projects. Add in well-heeled sophisticates like Peter Lewis and Les Wexner and that is a volatile combo. The sad thing is that native-Ohio designers such as myself half to move to a coast or beyond to be a part of any design community that is thinking and building forward (note where all of the designers mentioned here are based). In my experienced opinion, the typical design office in Ohio is firmly a decade behind the times (at best), despite the level of critical discourse in a few classrooms and boardrooms in the cities.