Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2012 - 37

photo by lee choo

The Grand Lobby
over forty years. With over 35,000 students, CSUN had grown
into a large institution, but it was still relatively unnoticed
by the greater Los Angeles area-even by many in the San
Fernando Valley.
From the outset, the Valley Performing Arts Center was
conceived as a public/private partnership: private donations
would fund the Great Hall, its support spaces, and front of
house. By statute, public funds for building projects in the California State System (CSU) are restricted to directly supporting
the academic mission of the system. When asked if this was a
typical funding scheme for new construction in the CSU, Koester
replied, laughing, "No, but I think increasingly the CSU is looking to build buildings and more unique spaces on its campuses
through public/private partnerships. We knew that we were going to have a lot of instructional space in the hall, and it was just
a natural to go after it with a public/private partnership."
Kara Hill, lead project designer, was involved in the 2002
feasibility study. One of the first decisions was to choose a site
for the proposed facility. She noted, "The whole committee,

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theatre design

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winter

2012

including, of course, the president, really saw this building as
bringing the community onto campus and the campus into the
community. Part of this was not just creating another building.
We really felt that this was a place the campus could see the
community coming, and the community could look out and see
the campus."
Instead of placing the performing arts center in the center
of campus, the feasibility study determined that the new facility would be located at the primary entrance to the campus.
This spot is directly adjacent to the two academic performing arts buildings housing the music and theatre departments
on one side and the campus's historic Orange Grove on the
other side. Originally planted in 1929, the Orange Grove is the
largest extant remnant of the citrus groves that filled the San
Fernando Valley in the first half of the twentieth century. Hill
added, "From the very beginning we talked about making this
a very extroverted building. How do you have a building that
people can visit the campus and see the campus? That was the
idea of this grand lobby." She continued, "It's actually an oldfashioned notion if you go back to the nineteenth-century Paris
Opera House and the recognition by Garnier that the lobby and
the arrival experience was as much of the theatrical experience
as the piece being done on the stage in the hall. People are
actually parking all over campus, and they are getting out and
walking through campus. They walk through the courtyard;
they walk through the space which is the exterior of the experimental theatre where students are practicing. There is this
great energy that's coming, and they [the community and campus] really are linked. From a design perspective, that started
the whole thing."
After parking, most patrons enter the complex by walking
through either the Sam and Mary Haskell Orange Grove Walk
from the east or via the Mike Curb College Arts Walk from the
west. The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Portal provides the
exterior entryway to the Central Courtyard. One of the more
striking elements of the Courtyard is the use of LED strips embedded in the walkways echoing the lines of the staggered panels on the sharply cantilevered roof far overhead. At dusk the
wide expanse of the Grand Lobby's glass curtain wall reflects
the warm light of the setting sun shimmering off the Muriel
Pollia Foundation Reflecting Pool. As the sunlight fades, the
outdoor space transitions indoors as the airy lobby is revealed
with its honey-colored travertine glowing under the indirect
lighting. The glass-paneled banister of the Jean and David Fleming Grand Staircase lifts the weight of this architectural element
and makes it seem to float as it rises to the parterre and loge
levels.

Halted Construction and Cost-Saving
Opportunities
"The biggest complication on a building like this is that we have
a university budget," said Hill. "You had to get that really exciting building, but for a fraction of the cost. You are also working
with facilities people who are concerned whether or not they
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2012
