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William & Mary Fine and Performing Arts Center
Client: The College of William & Mary

299,500 sf :: $160 million

The Fine + Performing Arts Center at William & Mary will be a
benchmark project for college campuses across the nation as
it seeks to truly integrate each branch of the arts departments
in a facility which will better serve the entire student body.
Evaluation of the existing facilities for the College of Arts +
Sciences and the Muscarelle Museum lead to a discussion to
start fresh with a completely new building. This presented the
opportunity to not only satisfy the needs of the program, but
to create an iconic piece of architecture which will become a
new entrance to a campus which has spread away from its
historic front door. An intense programming phase
coordinated the different space and adjacency needs of the
various departments - Art & Art History, Theatre, Speech &
Dance, and Music - as well as the museum. The resulting
space list includes a number of exceptional rooms which
will be valuable additions to the campus, among them a 750
seat concert hall, a 500 seat playhouse, a recital hall, and a
studio theatre. The museum will be located prominently at
the front of the building; it will become a portal to the
building. The strategy of making the overall facility a
grouping of smaller pieces allows the building, whose
programmed area is massive, to have a gentler impact on the
architectural landscape.