Architecture
The Hyde Park Art Center’s current building was designed by internationally recognized Chicago architect Douglas Garofalo of Garofalo Architects. The new building was converted from an old Army warehouse leased indefinitely to HPAC by the University of Chicago for $1 a year. The total budget for the project was $3 million. Garofalo "was selected to design a building that would highlight accessibility between artists and the public, transparency of the process of art making and exhibiting, and encourage experimentation with technology and concepts." Two of the building's most notable architectural features function to both problematize and undermine the institutionalized boundaries, both tangible and intangible, that often exists between art organizations and the public: the first floor of the building includes "five metal garage-style doors that open up to the main gallery from the sidewalk," thus extending the gallery space into the street and allowing the public to enter the Art Center easily and at will; and the second floor features "a 10x80 foot glass facade ... outfitted with a system of high range projectors, computers, scrims and screens used primarily to show large-scale digital artworks," that can be viewed from both inside and outside the Art Center.
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