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With its design for a new creative arts center at Johns Hopkins, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects confronted evidence of a strong case of Jeffersonitis, a condition affecting much southeast American campus architecture. The campus's two existing quadrangles, characterized by the type of neo-Georgian brick-and-white-trim architecture of Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia, date back to 1914, when the first buildings of a master plan by Parker and Thomas, of Boston and Baltimore, were finished.
A third quad-in-the-making seems to be maintaining the loyalty to the vocabulary. In such a setting, a Modern building can look as if a UFO landed among the halls of ivy. Williams and Tsien, however, demonstrate that a Modernist approach can give a campus a new identity without destroying its character.
Program
For most of its 126-year history, Johns Hopkins's reputation has been based on its science and literature programs. It has lacked a building devoted to the arts, and indeed does not have full-fledged art, music, and theater departments. Only in the past decade have students been able to take art electives for credit. And now, largely through private donations, a 50,000-square-foot facility has been put in place to add another dimension to student life.
Solution
The site for the arts center occupies 1.5 acres of a slope at the southeastern end of the campus, edged by a main thoroughfare on the east side, a power plant to the west, and a densely wooded sculpture garden that belongs to the Baltimore Museum of Art on the south.
Tod...