For graduate students in the new Curatorial Practice MA program at the School of Visual Arts, the boundaries between life and art are fluid. They come to the 10th floor of 132 West 21st Street to attend class, share a meal, install a show, attend a performance, take a nap, and read a book, among other things. It’s a demanding course load for 3,200 square feet, and the dynamic programming is made possible by the flexible, transformable design from Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Leong Leong architects.
Program Chair Steven Henry Madoff, who had previously tapped Renfro to contribute an essay to the anthology Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) published in 2009, recruited the architect as an inaugural faculty member of Curatorial Practice and also asked him to help conceive how the two-year curriculum might unfold in three dimensions. “We really needed the space to be a curatorial lab,” said Madoff, who envisioned it holding a variety of exhibits, events, and gatherings. Renfro was excited by the prospect of putting the ideas of his essay—that contemporary art can be many things so therefore experienced in a variety of spaces and settings—into practice. However, he could not fit the job into his DS+R schedule, so he and Madoff invited the young New York–based firm Leong Leong to collaborate on the design, develop drawings, and oversee construction.
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The space was designed to be neither neutral box nor imposing environment, but a programmable space that offers resistance as well as openness.
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The space opened to the first class of ten students in the fall of 2014. Key elements are a formal seminar classroom that converts into a screening room, a central space with moveable walls suspended from newly added girders, and a sun-filled kitchen-lounge-library area defined by birch plywood cabinets and shelving. Tucked throughout are unexpected maneuvers: a horizontal cut in the wall between the entry and the seminar room is not just a window but also a vitrine; the moveable walls not only slide but pivot, allowing for countless configurations; an odd-shaped niche is outfitted for napping; low coffee tables by Duffy of London quickly metamorphose into symposium-worthy dining tables.
Describing how space meets curriculum, Renfro said, “Its seeming neutrality is a ruse, demanding an interrogation of space and its role in content delivery.” Even the materials are meant to engage students’ imagination. “We really wanted to make each surface ‘curatable,’” said Chris Leong. Metallic painted oriented strand board adds texture to the northern end of the space, and felt covers walls inside the seminar room. In the main space, a sound absorbing felt curtain is backed with shiny aluminum-covered canvas to create a demure or spectacular backdrop as needed for the ever-changing stage for art.