red-deer-college-arts-centre: Red Deer College Arts Centre, Alberta, Canada
Designed 1981
Prominently located adjacent to the main entrance to Red Deer College, the Arts Centre provides a focal point for the growing College Academic Program in drama, music, and fine arts, as well as the performing arts community in Central Alberta. This integrated performing arts facility includes a 600-seat theatre, a 1200-seat concert hall, drama, music and dance rehearsal halls, an art gallery and a School of Music.
The building breaks the horizon of the broad Alberta prairies with the regional language of vertical grain elevators. The conceptual massing approach is expressed by the larger articulated auditorium and fly tower forms which rise above the roof tops of the existing college building, while the other building components are at the same scale as those of the existing building. The larger dominant forms are clearly articulated against the skyline, while at the base, they are tempered down to a more human scale by the use of grass covered berms.
The principal building components are organized in a linear relationship along either side of a major circulation spine. On one side are located the large-scale spaces of the auditorium, stage and fly tower, scene shop and the music and multi-purpose rehearsal halls. On the other side are located the smaller scale spaces of this central organizing spine.
Photo by Elaire Frenette
