by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Construction on George Pearl Hall is well under way and on schedule, said Gabriella Gutierrez, associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning.
Because of the building's progress, there will be a public foundation celebration today at 9:30 a.m. The celebration will be held on top of the Cornell Parking Structure.
"The site is restricted," Gutierrez said. "Doing it on top of the parking garage will allow people to look onto the site and see the construction in progress. It's much more dramatic."
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The foundation celebration is a great way to bring together the stakeholders in George Pearl Hall, said Jan Bandrofchak, development officer for the School of Architecture and Planning. The stakeholders include donors, faculty, students, alumni, the dean, the president, executive cabinet and anyone who has an interest in the new building, she said.
"We have hundreds of private gifts and donations to the building," Bandrofchak said. "Not all of them are from alumni, so we have people who really value the University and value the School of Architecture and Planning."
She said construction had been delayed so many times that some people didn't think it would ever be built.
But the building is right on schedule, she said, and should be finished by September or October 2007.
Gutierrez said the fourth floor of the building will be the site for the Fine Arts Library.
"The Fine Arts Library has, for a number of years, needed a lot of space, because they've been unable to expand in their present location," she said. "So, our dean brought up the idea of adding the Fine Arts Library to the program of the School of Architecture. They got the regents to agree and support it."
She said the library's space will double in size at the new location.
"Some of their collection is in storage, so they'll be able to have more of their collection out," she said. "Libraries all over the country have the same problem of not having enough space."
Architect George Pearl, for whom the building is named, donated nearly $2.5 million to the School of Architecture and Planning before his death in 2003, Gutierrez said. The donation had a snowball effect on his friends and other potential donors, which allowed the school to construct the building.
Chris Wilson, professor of cultural landscape studies, said George Pearl was a good friend to him.
"George was really great at listening to other people and having great discussions about architecture and culture and the quality of life and communities in New Mexico," Wilson said. "He really loved New Mexico's cultures and design traditions and worked to reinterpret them in a contemporary vain."
Wilson said the building respects the popular desire for regional traditions with the brown color palette and strong masonry appearance. At the same time it is contemporary in its straightforward use of concrete and precise cutout geometric forms, he said.
He said everyone can anticipate what the new building will feel like based on the Cornell Parking Structure, which was designed by the same architect, Antoine Predock.
"The cascade of steps and the southwest corner terrace gives a sense of the vocabulary that the new architecture building will have," he said. "Once the architecture building's completed it will combine with the bookstore, Popejoy Hall and the parking structure to create perhaps the most urban public space in Albuquerque. There'll be a density of people and activities there."
