Back to Portfolio Horowitz Visual & Performing Arts Center

Howard Community College

Location Columbia, Maryland

Howard Community College's new 42,400 NASF Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center brings together the existing Smith Theater and academic spaces with newly designed and constructed facilities for performing, visual and media arts programs and administrative support space.

Great synergies between fine and performing arts will be supported under a dramatic, cascading atrium lobby that joins academic and performance wings.

Key program elements include: instructional studios, a professional arts gallery, the main stage Smith Theater, two new performance spaces – a Black Box Studio Theater and a 128-seat Recital Hall – and two large Dance Studios. Music practice rooms, a photography studio, and ceramic and sculpture studios are located at the first level. Four large art studio spaces on the second level have north facing glazing and roof monitors that not only provide the north daylight essential to artists but also announce architecturally the artistic endeavors active within.

The lobby maintains a student pathway from the new north quadrangle to the developing south campus. A new box office is located along this route, as is a connection to the existing scene shop and loading areas. The connecting lobby reorients the Smith Theater toward the campus green. Its grand entrance is defined by a contemporary trellis and colonnade that form a “campus porch, “ juxtaposed by the curved shape of the new art gallery. The north quadrangle will be further activated as an outdoor gathering area for pre- and post- performance receptions.

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