Ever heard of the "Arts Lawn"? How about the "Performing Arts Center"? Although these places are nonexistent now, $200 million and 20 years later they may be used as frequently as Newcomb or Clemons.
These places are among the nine projects proposed by the Virginia 2020 Fine and Performing Arts Planning Commission. Forty individuals have served on the commission, headed by Drama Department Chairman Robert Chapel.
The recommendations of the commission "are intended to produce a major cultural transformation at [the University], enabling the arts to achieve, by 2020, the same level of national prominence as the University's other most recognized centers of excellence," as stated in the Executive Summary Fine and Performing Arts Report.
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University President John T. Casteen III established the 2020 commissions in 1998 to examine where the University wants to be in 20 years. The fine and performing arts commission is a subset of the 2020 Commission.
About 30 faculty, staff and students discussed the proposals yesterday during an open forum in Newcomb Hall.
"All the proposals will cost a great deal of money, but the gains will be priceless," Chapel said. "All that we hope to accomplish will not be easily paid for."
Donations and state funds will help finance the projects, said Clorisa Phillips, special projects director in the Provost's Office. A former University drama student has already donated $500,000 to the efforts.
The proposals include a new art museum, arts library, music building, studio art museum, performing arts museum and parking garage. Renovating Fayerweather Hall and adding to Culbreth Theatre and the Architecture School are also in the plans.
According to the Executive Summary, the completed projects will "enrich the experience of students and faculty, expand the cultural resources ... and develop the physical environment in which the arts are created and performed."
A landscape framework will serve as the "glue that holds the projects together," Phillips said. "This will help the projects all relate to each other in varying terrain."
One faculty member at the meeting proposed destroying the Lambeth Colonnades in order to make room for the fine arts projects.
"We will be preserving the Colonnades," said Peter Low, University vice president and provost. "Disturbing them would be disturbing sacred earth."
Included in the landscaping plans are "alternate ways of getting pedestrian traffic across University Avenue," Chapel said. This could include building a bridge connecting Rubgy Road and University Avenue.
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