Seismic
safety upgrade planned for UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific
Film Archive
01
Dec 2000
By
Rod Macneil, Berkeley Art Museum
Berkeley
- The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific
Film Archive will undergo a $4 million seismic retrofit starting
in April 2001 to improve the building's safety and to allow
the facility to keep its current location while officials
investigate building a new one.
"We are
very pleased to be able to provide this support to the UC
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive," said Ed Denton,
UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for capital projects. "This
building program demonstrates the university's commitment
to ensuring that students, faculty, staff and the general
public can continue to have access to BAM/PFA's world-class
programs and exhibitions."
"It is
gratifying that the university has acknowledged the important
role the art museum and film archive plays within both the
campus and wider Bay Area communities, and that it is taking
these interim steps to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience
for our visitors," said Kevin E. Consey, the museum and film
archive's director.
"I am delighted
that we are making this move towards a permanent solution
to the museum's seismic challenges. Among our highest priorities
is to ensure that the public can continue to enjoy our exceptional
exhibitions, lectures, and public programs while we make plans
for a new, expanded facility that will better meet the needs
of our local, national, and international audiences."
The retrofit
will comprise a series of steel braces at key locations on
the building's exterior and interior.
Exterior
work will feature steel columns sunk into concrete piers at
five points in the museum's sculpture garden. These columns
will join braces on the outer edge of the building's tiered
galleries to further strengthen its walls.
Inside
the museum, a series of six, eight-inch diameter steel columns
will be installed in the museum's entrance lobby and atrium
to strengthen the facility's distinctive cantilevered galleries.
These columns will be placed so as to minimize the impact
on public and exhibition spaces inside the museum and will
result a small loss of total exhibition space. In addition,
cross-braces will be added in the skylights at the rear of
six of the galleries.
Work on
the exterior of the building is expected to begin in April
and continue through October. Construction work in the galleries
is scheduled to begin in late May and continue through August.
It is anticipated
that the galleries will close May 28 and reopen in stages,
beginning in late August. Work should be completed by early
September. Access to the museum garden will be restricted
from April through October.
Film screenings
at the new Pacific Film Archive Theater - at 2575 Bancroft
Way, on the south side of the campus - will continue uninterrupted.
In September
1999, the first phase of the move to a safer and improved
museum and film archive began with the opening of the new
Pacific Film Archive Theater in a temporary facility across
from the museum, at Bancroft Way and Bowditch Street.
Structural
engineers for this project are Forell/Elsesser Engineers,
Inc. of San Francisco, and C. David Robinson Architects. Construction
will be handled by BBI Construction of Oakland.
The UC
Berkeley Office for Capital Projects' feasibility study, begun
in October and slated for completion late next year, explores
the possibility of locating a new museum and film archive
on university property at the corner of Oxford and Center
streets, on the west side of campus.
The site,
currently occupied by university services, is close to BART
and downtown Berkeley. The city of Berkeley plans to develop
an arts and theater district centering on Addison Street,
between Shattuck Avenue and Milvia Street.
The challenges
presented by the current museum building represent an exceptional
opportunity for the museum and film archive to examine how
a new facility might best serve an expanding campus, Berkeley
and Bay Area community, Consey said.
In its
present form, the museum has limited exhibition and education
spaces and is not equipped to present some of the newer developments
in multi-media art and installations.
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The University
of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
is located at 2626 Bancroft Way, just below College Avenue
near the UC Berkeley campus
Gallery
Hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11 to 5; Thursday
11 to 9
Admission:
General admission $6; Seniors and Students 12 - 18 years $4;
BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley staff, faculty, and students,
and children under 12 free; group tour member $3 (to arrange,
call (510) 642-5188)
Free hours:
Thursday 11 to noon and 5 to 9
Information:
Museum recorded message (510) 642-0808; PFA recorded message:
(510) 642-1124; FAX (510) 642-4889
Internet
address: www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
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