New Visions Gallery for the Bureau of Cultural Affairs

Project Description

A long time dream of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, the gallery serves young and emerging artists who have few opportunities for exposure and who are frequently supported by grants and fellowships from the Bureau. Before the realization of this gallery, the Bureau was continually faced with the problem of staging exhibitions in temporarily appropriated spaces, often inadequate in any number of aspects¾space, lighting, security, etc.

The gallery occupies a ground floor, corner space in a newly constructed high-rise office building. The building is on Peachtree Street, Atlanta’s main north-south traffic corridor, in an area which is re-emerging after years of neglect. The gallery has been guaranteed use of the space for four years.

Programmatically the gallery includes an exhibition space, entry foyer and sales / control area, a small office and a small storage / work room. The foyer / sales / control area doubles as a reception area and socializing space for openings and other events. The foyer area mediates between the rawness of the exhibition area and the formal and elegantly detailed building lobby. The exhibition space is highly visible from the exterior, a major concern of the gallery director. Natural light and visual access are controlled with blinds. The exhibition area has a highly flexible lighting system. Partitions are a readily demountable drywall system that connects overhead to a steel pipe grid with special pressure clamps and at the floor with standard metal studs. The gallery director anticipates installations of great variety necessitating extensive manipulation over time of the simple but flexible systems.

Images

Drawings