The University of Iowa campus merges with the urban Grid of Iowa City, which has the old State Capitol of 1842 as its symbolic center. Projected across the Iowa River, the grid becomes distorted as it meets the topography of ravines and hills descending to the river’s west bank, where a series of buildings for the arts are aligned: the theater, museum and the original 1936 School of Art building. At the outset of the project, a flat green space immediately to the west of the museum was believed to be the best. We thought of the building as an instrument of connection and generator of campus space, rather than an autonomous form. The site was too remote for the existing School of Art for the project to realize the aspiration of maximum integration of the program with the historic building and the greater campus. Attention turned to Hutchinson Quarry Pond, flanked by a bluff of exposed limestone immediately facing the existing art building.
Engaging the edges of the reclaimed pond, the building’s fuzzy edges create new campus spaces, pathways and connections: a campus porosity. To the west, a double height reading room marks a new campus gateway and bracketed between the elevated arms, a sunny desk suspended over the water forms a gathering space. To the north, a serene urban wall of channel glass is set against open campus space. On Riverside Drive, situated in relation to a major path from the main campus, the building’s principal entrance occurs under the curving overhand of an auditorium. Internally, this path continues as a public route. Through the multiple access points, campus is drawn into the building. The dispersion and ‘fuzziness’ of the edges is seen as a positive way to embrace phenomena such as sunlight reflected from water on the lagoon and the white light from freshly fallen snow in wintertime. The spaces within the building engage the landscape and become part of the campus. As an analogy for a “hybrid instrument”, Picasso’s 1912 Guitar sculpture provides a planar open architectural language. Two levels of the library are pushed out into a cantilever keeping the building low and engaging the pond.
