A new, Mondrian style Fine Arts Building will be replacing the current one, offering students at Cerritos College many perks in 2016.
The renovation will start next year in what is currently the C-8 parking lot, and it’s expected to be completed by 2016.
Students in the Mass Communications and Fine Arts Division can look forward to seperate work areas from their lecture rooms; this renovation hopes to design more space for hands-on work.
Gary Pritchard, the dean of the Mass Communications and Fine Arts Division, took a lead role in the new building renovation.
He said there will be “(a) work area for ceramics and print making so that the students could do more of the lab pieces separate from the instruction area.”
There will also be a stage area on the side of the building where students and professors can conduct concerts or outdoor lectures.
Another key component that professors are excited for is the gallery being more integrated into the building.
James MacDevitt, the curator for the Cerritos College Art Gallery, looks forward to the new gallery because it offers a more space, which means art work can stay in the gallery for a long period.
“Right now, Cerritos (College) has ongoing, rotating exhibitions, but we don’t have an identity outside from that,” MacDevitt said. “A permanent collection tends to provide that kind of identity for institutions.”
According to MacDevitt, the new art gallery will have, in addition to the exhibition space, a dirty work room.
“The new design will allow us to have (a) more grandiose installation, where we can build pedastools and walls that will allow us to alter the dynamics of the exhibition space,” he said.
Eco-friendly people would approve of the new building because it will have energy saving resources.
This upgraded Mass Communications and Fine Arts Division is planned to be very modern and clean with exposed beams so that the architectural mechanical pieces of it are visible.
Because it is one of the latest designs, Pritchard said it will be a fully functional, technology-driven space, with wifi installed in the building.
The faculty is looking forward to the final product because of the new and improved classes, offices and lecture halls.
“They are enjoying the process. It’s always fun to think about what the next 50 years will be like in the campus,” Pritchard said. “Your time will be over and that building will still be serving long after you’re gone.”
The new renovation is a big investment, but MacDevitt said he thinks it will be worth it in the long run, especially since the current Fine Arts Building “has served us well, but at 60 to 70 years old now, it is seeing some age.”
