The Arts Grounds

New Facilities

Ruffin Hall

Ruffin Hall, the home for studio art, is the first entirely new arts facility constructed on the Arts Grounds. Envisioned as a “village of the arts,” Ruffin Hall features a wide range of improvements, including abundant light, wide hallways for exhibiting student and faculty work, the latest ventilation systems, and freight elevators for moving large objects. The building contains studios designed specifically for the teaching of painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, performance art, and digital media. Construction was completed the summer of 2008.

Naming opportunities are still available in Ruffin Hall in recognition of programmatic support for Studio Art.

The Arts Common

The Arts Common will help to unify the Arts Grounds on Carr’s Hill, providing a central green space for planned and impromptu outdoor arts events. Taking advantage of the natural topography, the Arts Common will include an amphitheater built into the north slope of Carr’s Hill. A water feature will play both an aesthetic and practical role, helping to manage storm water on this steep site. The Arts Common will be a place where students and faculty continually cross paths. It will foster a sense of community and collaboration among the University’s arts and architecture programs and will help generate the creative energy that inspires imaginative work.

New Music Building

Home to the Commonwealth’s first Ph.D. program in music, the McIntire Department of Music is highly respected for the scholarship of its faculty. With the department’s dramatic increase in the number of faculty, courses, and students, it has outgrown its current space in Old Cabell Hall. A new facility located in the Arts Grounds will enable the department to expand its academic and performance programs and will also house a new music library.

Renovations and Additions

Fayerweather Hall

Built as a gymnasium in the late nineteenth century, Fayerweather Hall has been restored and reconfigured to house the art history program and to encompass the Carl H. and Martha S. Lindner Center for Art History. The renovation created new offices, an archaeology study facility, new meeting and seminar rooms, and a space for the storage and retrieval of art slides and other visual resources. Restoration efforts also included the development of a new courtyard and garden, and the re-creation of the long skylight along the roof ridgeline, which allows natural light to brighten offices, hallways, and other interior spaces.

Campbell Hall

The School of Architecture has more than doubled its enrollment since moving into Campbell Hall more than thirty years ago. Today it houses one of the nation’s leading architecture and landscape architecture departments, as well as distinguished programs in architectural history and urban and environmental planning. Designed by prominent architects and landscape architects on the faculty, working in coordination with SMBW Architects in Richmond, the additions to Campbell Hall include a new entry tower to the east housing flexible exhibition space, rooms for reviewing student work, and a lower level entry to the auditorium.

Victor Elmaleh (Architecture ’42) and his wife, Sono, provided the lead funding for the east entry tower, which is named in their honor. To the south, a new bank of twenty-six faculty offices is linked to nearby studios and teaching spaces. Interior renovations encompass a renovated lecture hall, upgraded seminar and jury rooms, a technology bridge, and an improved café. The new landscape plan includes an east passage, a bio-retention demonstration garden, an auditorium court, a graduate work terrace, and two outdoor classrooms. The new additions opened in fall 2008.

Drama Building

The Drama Building addition will accommodate growth of the performing arts programs, thus ensuring the University’s future as a center of excellence and creativity. Expansion and renovation of the Drama Department’s aging facility will create flexible, new and improved performance, studio, instructional, office and support spaces for drama and dance. The project will integrate new lighting, sound, and media technologies into U.Va.’s drama education programs and productions. Classrooms will be soundproofed and scenery and costume shops will be equipped with new technology in computer-aided design. A 300-seat thrust-stage theater, a 100-seat studio theater and classroom, a dance rehearsal studio, and a media studio for sound and film work will complement the Culbreth and Helms theaters.

With these new facilities, the Drama Department will be able to expand its undergraduate and graduate offerings in such areas as dance, film studies, and stage directing.

The Bayly Building Addition

The Bayly Building Addition will be a five-level, 20,000 GSF addition on the west side of the current building. The project will support the University Museum’s teaching and exhibit missions by providing expanded exhibit and teaching galleries; improved art storage, art handling, and art conservation facilities; additional offices; and other support spaces. To enhance the Museum’s setting and visibility, the scope of work will include extensive landscape improvements in front of the Bayly Building and along Bayly Drive. Upgrades to the existing building infrastructure systems will insure enhanced and more reliable climate control for both the existing building and the addition.

Campaign for the Arts website