Brown University to open new $40M arts building

[February 09, 2011]  PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Brown University is celebrating the opening of a new $40 million arts building. It will be a venue for performances and art exhibits, as well as classroom space for subjects as varied as robotics and music.

The Ivy League school will open the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts on Thursday.

The nearly 39,000-square-foot concrete and steel building includes exhibition space and a 218-seat recital hall. The hall has a 35-mm film projector and is adjacent to an outdoor amphitheater.

The building is split vertically down the middle by glass, and floors on either side are offset half a story so people can look diagonally up or down and see what's happening in adjacent spaces.

Brown art professor Richard Fishman says the idea was to encourage the arts to touch into other areas of the Providence, R.I., university.

[Associated Press; By MICHELLE R. SMITH]

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