Cleveland Institute of Art unveils MVRDV design for $53 million expansion
COURTESY OF MVRDVBlending humor, simplicity and bridgelike engineering, the Cleveland Institute of Art expansion envisioned by Dutch architect Winy Maas hunches up in the middle like a giant inchworm or caterpillar.
The Cleveland Institute of Art added momentum to the revitalization of University Circle Friday by unveiling plans for the $53 million expansion and renovation of its McCullough Center on upper Euclid Avenue. The four-year art college has raised nearly half the money for the project in cash, pledges and tax credits and hopes to break ground in May, said David Deming, the school's president.
"We're excited, we really are excited," he said. "It's very gratifying to arrive at this moment. It's something the faculty, administration and trustees have been trying to figure out for 20 years."
When the project is finished in 2009, the art institute will vacate its aging and outmoded Gund Building at 11141 East Blvd., opposite the Cleveland Museum of Art, and sell or lease the property for uses that could include a luxury condominium.
The expansion of the McCullough Center, in effect, will unify the art institute in a single campus for the first time since 1981.
The art institute project, designed by architect Winy Maas of the leading Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, will anchor the eastern edge of Case Western Reserve University's $300 million Triangle development, also called the University Arts and Retail District.
The goal of the Triangle is to create a vibrant new residential, cultural and retail zone. The 8.5-acre development will be anchored by the art institute expansion on the east and on the west by a new building for the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
"There's a whole district-in-waiting that's just going to be lit up by MOCA and CIA," said Chris Ronayne, director of the nonprofit University Circle Inc. "These are all iconic assets that will breathe life into the neighborhood."
The art institute's expansion, to be built by developer John Ferchill, will add a new 80,000-square-foot structure designed by Maas to the west side of the Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts at 11610 Euclid Ave. The art institute has occupied the building, a former Ford Model T factory, since 1981.
The McCullough Center will be renovated with new galleries, classrooms, studios and a library.
The expansion next door will be a long, low, rectangular box framed in glass and steel. It will arch up in the middle like a gigantic inchworm to create a covered entrance. An auditorium, cafe and classrooms will be located on terraced floors above the arch.
Deming called the Maas design a creative reinterpretation of the McCullough Center. He's confident it will be approved by the Ohio Historic Preservation Office and the U.S. Department of the Interior for roughly $11 million to $13 million in state and federal tax credits. The credits are critical to the project.
The art college has raised an equivalent amount in cash and pledges, and is confident it can raise a similar amount by this winter. That would bring funding to 75 percent of the project's cost, the goal set by trustees for the go-ahead, Deming said.
COURTESY OF MVRDV
The Cleveland Institute of Art expansion will add 80,000 square feet to the west side of the school's McCullough Center.
COURTESY OF MVRDVA diagram shows how Winy Maas conceived the basic massing of his Cleveland Institute of Art expansion. The project hunches up in the middle like an inchworm, and also curves to the side, to bring the warped rectangle in contact with the art institute's existing McCullough Center.
COURTESY OF MVRDVA computer rendering shows how the expansion of the McCullough Center will look at night.
COURTESY OF MVRDVA close-up view shows the arched entrance proposed for the expanded Cleveland Institute of Art complex on upper Euclid Avenue.
The notion of deconstructing buildings that are slated for demolition and transforming, or upcycling, the wood salvaged from those buildings into useful consumer products, particularly furniture and home accessories, is now a reality on Cleveland, Ohio. The materials used to make homes and commercial buildings one hundred and more years ago were of very high quality, lasting many years until culture, technology (automobiles and highways), and politics robbed the old neighborhoods of their original vitality. Currently over one thousand homes per year are being torn down in Cleveland, Ohio, and most of the materials used in those homes are ending up in landfills.
Well, I finally finished this puppy. A few days turned into weeks when the whole family got that cold going around in March. This mini prowl, only about 5 1/2 minutes long, features the flavor of a vibrant Soho street life, enhanced by 'revelers' celebrating Italy's win of the soccer World Cup. I expect Cleveland to match this at some of our summer festivals this year, like Ingenuity. 
