Projects in Progress A NEW EDUCATION AND VISITOR CENTER
If
you’ve been to The Huntington lately, you may have noticed lots of work
going on in the parking lot. We are preparing to build a new Education
and Visitor Center at The Huntington, slated to be completed in early
2015.
The EVC will be composed of a complex of gardens and
buildings designed to harmonize with the Huntington’s original early
20th-century Beaux-Arts architecture. New facilities will replace some
of the older facilities. But there also will be a new café, classrooms,
expanded gift shop, and a lecture hall with raked seating, among other
features. We’re excited about the new endeavor and look forward to
sharing more with you as the project moves forward. |
Project Renderings • Facts & Highlights • Construction Update
Project Renderings
Facts & Highlights
Project:
A new entrance complex at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and
Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif., consisting of gardens and
facilities for lectures, conferences, classes, meetings, and visitor
amenities, as well as underground storage space for The Huntington’s
collections of rare historical materials.
Location:
Replaces the existing 9,000-square-foot entrance area (part of a larger
complex designed by Whitney R. Smith in 1980) and extends northward,
into space opposite the Munger Research Center.
Projected opening date: Early 2015
Cost: $60 million; funded through private sources
Project team
- Architect:
Stephen J. Farneth, FAIA, founding principal; and James McLane, AIA,
associate principal, Architectural Resources Group
- Landscape architect: Cheryl Barton, Office of Cheryl Barton
- Project manager: Laurie Sowd, vice president for operations, The Huntington
Architectural style:
The new buildings are designed to be compatible with the formality,
scale, and materials of the original 20th-century Beaux-Arts
architecture on the property by noted Pasadena architect Myron Hunt.
They incorporate stucco, red clay tile roofs, bronze detailing, loggias,
and trellises. Highly functional, they are beautifully but simply
detailed and serve as an elegant background to landscaped exterior
spaces. Integrating the structures completely with the surrounding
landscape provides opportunities for incorporating natural light and
views both from the inside and outside, and access from all interior
spaces into adjoining exterior areas.
Landscape: The 6.5
acres of gardens highlight the natural, agricultural, and cultural
landscape origins of the estate in a Mediterranean plant palette. The
central garden is formal and axial with hedge rooms and an alee of olive
trees; the entry grove offers a tree-canopied area to relax at the
beginning or end of a visit; and the south garden’s lush flower beds
create a vibrant transition from the formality of the entry gardens to
the historic core of the property, just beyond. Highlights
- 400-seat lecture hall with raked
floor for excellent sight lines and state-of-the-art audio-visual
capabilities for The Huntington’s program of lectures, conferences, and
small musical performances.
- Multipurpose room with
audio-visual capabilities and flexible lighting to accommodate botanical
shows, dinners, and other educational and donor- cultivation events
- Four classrooms located near the bus drop-off and designed especially to serve school children and their teachers
- An elegant board room providing meeting space for The Huntington's volunteer leadership and others
- New retail store offering twice the sales space in a beautifully detailed setting
- Glass-domed Garden Court serving as a covered outdoor lobby for the lecture hall, multipurpose room, and classrooms
- Trellises and loggias creating transitional spaces between gardens and buildings
- New café offering
a variety of food stations, indoor seating with views to the gardens,
and outdoor seating beneath a lemon arbor and with views of the Desert
Garden and the Huntington Art Gallery
- Coffee shop for quick snacks near the entrance
- New routing of vehicles leads those entering through the north (Allen Ave.) gate along the historic Palm Drive past the Mausoleum
- Pedestrian paths from the entrance gates offer safe passage past lush landscapes
- 43,000 square feet of underground Library collections storage with excellent climate conditions and security
Energy usage and sustainability
- Overall
design, including the building envelope, lighting, and HVAC systems,
exceeds California’s Title 24 minimum requirements by more than 17
percent
- Plumbing system and fixtures exceed California’s CAL Green requirements by more than 30 percent
- 75 percent of construction debris will be recycled
- All excavated soil will be reused on site
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Construction Update May 2013 (updated May 2, 2013)
Repaving of Palm Drive and first portion of parking lot—regular stream of trucks
bringing base and asphalt to the property May 6-9. April 2013 (updated April 5, 2013)
• Pour foundations for the temporary ticketing and store tent, rough in utilities
• Erect the tent
• Install underground utilities in the first phase of the parking lot (Palm Drive and the current staff lot)
• Harvest planting soil from the first phase of the parking lot Construction Information Hotline: 626-405-2100 x: 2251 Email: publicinformation@huntington.org |
For more information contact:
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