School Considers Art Building Expansion
BY ERIN HURLEY

Anyone attempting to enroll in a studio art class feels what the Art Department’s Space Committee has deemed “severe enrollment pressures” on studio art courses at Oberlin. Some hope that with a new expansion of the Art Building and an expansion of the Studio Art faculty from three to five adjunct faculty members, the Art Department will be able to double the number of students accommodated. 
“The fact is that the College was not meeting the legitimate and pressing needs of students in the studio art area,” said Professor and Chair of the Art Department Daniel Goulding regarding the planned expansion of the art building. “We decided that there was no way out of this box unless we have more space and more teaching strength.”
The administration gave clearance to the project, and a final draft of the Programmatic Space Report, which outlines the department’s ideas for the expansion, was submitted Jan. 15. Negotiations are underway regarding the potential architect of the new facilities. According to Goulding, around six candidates are currently being considered. Those six will come to Oberlin in March to present their plans to the Space Committee and the board of trustees. 
Although there are no definite plans for the architect to be hired, the committee has mentioned hiring an “up-and-coming” architect, or possibly even an Oberlin alum. Goulding said that the architect will be someone with “imagination and architectural design scope.” 
The new architect will have big shoes to fill. The famous architect Cass Gilbert designed the Allen Memorial Art Museum in 1917, and the checkered addition, built 1976 was designed by architect Robert Venturi.
If all of the Space Committee’s suggestions are fulfilled, the new art facilities will include expansion of the art library, addition of a “major new Installation/Performance space,” expansion and upgrade of the slide library, classrooms I and II and the addition of a new drawing studio. 
First-year Zarouhie Abdalian said the addition will “make having classes easier, especially since studio art classes here are so large. People here are pretty motivated to do larger pieces. They have big ideas.” Abdalian admitted feeling “really cramped in a small art studio with twenty-three other students,” and said the new spaces should do much to alleviate these problems.
A major consideration in the planning for these new facilities is the accommodation of new media and emerging arts. The recent appointment of Linda Weintraub to a professorship in emerging arts demonstrates the Art Department’s willingness to accept and integrate non-traditional art forms into traditional areas of art study, and to recognize the “increasingly permeable boundaries of older art categories.” 
Abdalian thinks this new development is important. “It’s good that these areas won’t be separated anymore because that’s not how it works. Artists aren’t separate. There’s a lot of energy generated by being around each other. Knowing what other artists are doing is part of the creative process. A lot of interesting things can come out of that.”

There is also talk of the building of new theater facilities, for example a flexible “black box”-type space similar to the Little Theater. However, Goulding said these ideas have not been elaborated on. Goulding recognized this is a long-standing need. “I don’t know how long we’ve had the proposal,” he said. At present, there are no definitive plans.
Currently, the administration’s energies are directed toward the much-needed new art facilities. Goulding was excited about the implications of these new spaces. “Maybe at last something will be done to move the arts forward. I think the outlook is positive,” he said.