-By Stacy Straczynski

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) recently broke ground on the expansion of its Museum of Art complex. The new Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, whose design plans incorporate elements of African-American cultural history, will house a vast collection of donated African-American art—showcasing works from the 19th and 20th centuries donated to SCAD by the collector—and serve as an interdisciplinary facility for study.

The completed Evans Center will add 60,000 sq.-ft. of interior space to the museum and feature an 86-ft. tall steel and glass lantern over a central atrium and glass-walled gallery. The facility will include new galleries for art exhibition; classrooms for the study of African-American art, literature, and culture; exhibition space; event space; and a 250-seat theater. Outside, a courtyard and tree-lined landscape on the Turner Street side of the property will provide outdoor community space. (See more images at TalkContract.com)

Overall design of the project was led by SCAD president Paula Wallace, Glenn E. Wallace, Jr. and the SCAD Design Group, while the architectural team consisted of Sottile & Sottile Urban Designers, Lord, Aeck + Sargent Architects, Neil Dawson Architect, and Quenroe Associates Museum Consultants.

In addition to enhancing education, the Evans Center will help to revitalize the Central of Georgia Railroad 1853 depot, an abandoned commercial downtown site that SCAD has made a public commitment to revitalize through preservation education and building conservation. SCAD plans to reuse the depot’s brick masonry walls, which were most likely fashioned by African-American slaves, and salvaged materials in the new construction, symbolically making the building one with history.

“Like the collections it holds, the architectural concepts explored in the design of the SCAD Museum of Art are an exercise in contrasts. This site-specific solution for The Museum is a contemporary structure, rising up out of the ruinous masonry walls of the former Central of Georgia Up-Freight Warehouse. Inside the facility, university students, faculty and visitors from around the country and beyond will experience a dynamic contrast of curatorial offerings, textures and cultures,” says Martin Smith, Executive Director for Design and New Construction at SCAD.

The first phase of the SCAD Evans Center project will be complete for the fall of 2011.