News Stories

BAC TO THE FUTURE GALA

On Saturday evening, October 14, 2006, the Boston Architectural College publicly celebrated its name change in grand style with a sold-out, formal fundraising event. The evening began with a reception in Cascieri Hall. Mayor Thomas Menino was in attendance and extended congratulations to President Ted Landsmark and the BAC community on this momentous occasion in the College’s history. He was joined by special guests including Jack Myer, architect of the 320 Newbury Street building and Richard Haas, artist of the iconic mural on the west façade of the Newbury Street building. Other notable attendees included Jane Weinzapfel, President, Boston Society of Architects and celebrated alum Carol Wedge, B’Arch ‘91, President of Shepley Bullfinch Richardson and Abbott. As well, BAC Board and Overseers turned out in record numbers.

Over 250 guests enjoyed hors d'oeuvres and cocktails and a champagne toast celebrated past successes and future goals of the “new” BAC. Guests were then escorted by flutist for a short walk to dinner at 955 Boylston Street building, where human statues welcomed guests into the magnificently transformed building.

Alumni, guests and friends, dressed in black-tie, re-connected with faculty, staff, design leaders and practicing professionals. Firm sponsors were also well represented. A complete listing of Gala sponsors can be found on our website.

Distinguished furniture vendors, Newbury Street neighborhood businesses, as well as BAC alumni and friends, donated a myriad of items for the Celebrations Raffle, including a Piranesi print and a custom-designed gothic rattan arm chair by M-Geough Company. BAC student Timothy Gaull was the fortunate winner of the Raffle grand prize – the Architectural Desktop and Revit 9.1 software package -- valued at $10,000 – and generously donated by our friends at Autodesk.

An enjoyable evening was had by all! Thank you to our Gala supporters and congratulations to the Celebrations Committee, co-chaired by Holly Cratsley ‘84, AIA, and Michael Davis, LEED, for organizing a tremendous celebration of the new BAC. Special thanks as well to the BAC Development Committee members, led by Peter Steffian, FAIA, NCARB, for their assistance in making this event a success. Proceeds to benefit student programs at the BAC, topped $105,000 due to the efforts and the generosity of our attendees and sponsors.

NEIGHBORHOOD SOUL SYMPOSIUM

On a bright, autumn morning, the BAC welcomed members of the Greater Boston community for Neighborhood Soul: The Power of Community Art Symposium. The event was held on Saturday, October 14th as part of the BAC’s series of name change celebrations.

The discussion, moderated by Karen Nelson, Director of Advanced Architectural Studios, explored numerous topics including public art process and the emotional integrity needed to achieve these works. Multiple perspectives, of the artist and the client, were voiced through interactive dialogue between the panelists and audience.

Each of the eight panelists creates or facilitates works that reveal and hold stories that emerge from local communities to create new places. These places provide possibilities for interacting in and with the city, and work that enriches public spaces while introducing new audiences to public art.

Meredith Bergmann is a sculptor who for over 25 years has been making work that deals with complex themes in an accessible and stimulating way. Her largest public commission, unveiled in 2003, was for the Boston Women’s Memorial in Boston’s Back Bay. The memorial on Commonwealth Avenue Mall commemorates Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley, and Lucy Stone for their writing and their impact on society.

Fern Cunningham-Terry creates her sculptures in the classical traditions of Michelangelo and Rodin, capturing their artistic emotion and strength in her own work. These qualities are evidenced in her Harriet Tubman piece, Step On Board, which resides in a park at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Pembroke Street in Boston's South End. The figure of Harriet Tubman stands in animated motion, surrounded by several figures that emerge from the wall as they though symbolically emerging from bondage.

David Fichter paints colorful, figurative murals celebrating the diversity of cultures and the histories of communities. He works with students of all ages to explore school curriculum-based themes, while focusing on the fundamentals of design, drawing, tile-making, and painting for permanent murals. He has received numerous commissions to create public murals in the Boston area.

Thirty years ago, Richard Haas completed his mural on the BAC’s west facade. It has since become a neighborhood icon. In the seventies, Haas began to transform factory facades, barren building sides, and alleyway walls into architectural works of art; restoring the character of a neighborhood through art, using the blank walls as the city’s canvas. Haas executed his first mural at 112 Prince Street in SoHo in 1975 and went on to create the BAC’s mural a few years later in 1977.

In 1991, the Boston Youth Clean-Up Corps (BYCC) employed artist Heidi Schork to head up a new division of its program called the Mural Crew. Since its introduction, the Mural Crew has employed hundreds of teen artists and a core group of professional artists who lead projects.

Wen-ti Tsen has received numerous commissions over the course of his career, including a "sculptural plaza" in Yakima, Washington, and Dream Catcher at the Boston Arts Academy, commissioned by the Fund for the Arts in honor of the Fund's founder, Phil David Fine. He as also worked with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center to construct a replica of a mural that was lost when a building was demolished three years earlier.

Marie Turley has been the executive director of the City of Boston’s Women’s Commission since her appointment by Mayor Thomas Menino in 1995. She also holds a variety of positions in state and city government, including the Teen Voices/Women Express community advisory board, the Girls’ Coalition of Greater Boston Leadership Council, and the board of the National Association of Commissions for Women.

In his fifteen-year tenure as Senior Preservation Planner for the City of Boston Environment Department with primary responsibility for the Back Bay Architectural District, William Young has reviewed hundreds of commercial, institutional, and residential projects involving everything from restoration to new construction.

“Communities need art and artists need communities,” said Bergmann. “A community would not ask a builder to produce a building that’s both large and small, or an architect to design something simultaneously ornate and austere, but they may challenge an artist to resolve contradictions or to heal civic wounds.”

The discussion addressed issues of the current state of public art and encouraged action towards its future. BAC President Ted Landsmark opened the discussion and remarked: “We’re in a time when the kind of work that many of the artists and practitioners and public officials who are on this panel, if not diminished, is not occurring with the same kind of passion and vibrancy that it has in the past. And many people are raising the question of how we can re-energize what it is our cities need to do as we plan forward.

“It would be my hope that we would not only share information on what has gone before but that at the end of our symposium and our discussions today we would begin to lay out something of an agenda of what it is that must come now.”

The symposium provided a dialogue between these individuals and explained how each addresses their understanding of storytelling,audience, and community through their work; how they define their clients; and what their intentions are and how they were communicated during the development process.

The emotional energies that produce public murals and sculpture were emphasized. There was a notable recurring theme of the artist working with community to establish and re-establish identity was threaded throughout the morning’s discussion.

“I believe very strongly that our audience is in a sense unborn, that we will have our work and our efforts judged by future generations as to our stewardship of our urban environment,” said Young. “And I think as part of that, the storytelling piece enters the picture.”

The symposium was followed by Haas’s signing of his mural – completed on the BAC’s west façade 30 years ago – and a luncheon for panelists and the audience, which included a wide spectrum of the community from well-known public artist Sidewalk Sam to the BAC’s Board Chair Chuck Redmon.

MURAL SIGNING

On Saturday, October 14, Richard Haas returned to the BAC to sign the mural that he completed in 1976, marking the 30th anniversary of the mural’s completion. The mural on the west façade of the BAC ornaments and dignifies the west façade of 320 Newbury Street.

“Sometimes we think of [art] long-lasting, but in our society it can be ground into dust in a matter of minutes,” said Haas, commenting on the preservation of his public artwork. “So that in itself is something of a statement.”

The signing was coordinated with Richard Haas: Murals, an exhibition in the McCormick Gallery celebrating Haas’ work and public art in the BAC vicinity. The works featured span the American landscape, with significant contributions to Boston: from paintings of Copley Square to the fantastical interior mural in the 101 Merrimac Street lobby. The exhibition revealed Haas’s capacity to envisage and create, and his interest in the urban environment and architectural history, and was punctuated by his contribution to the BAC’s image in its west facade mural.

For decades, Haas has transformed factory façades, barren building sides, and alleyway walls into architectural works of art. Born in Wisconsin, Haas was influenced in his early years by his uncle, George Haas. George was a stonemason at Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio at Taliesin and was able to obtain summer internships for Haas during high school. Haas absorbed the intense energy of Wright’s studio that would nurture his artistic abilities throughout his career. While earning his degree in art and art education at the University of Wisconsin, Haas practiced a variety of disciplines including painting, printmaking, and intaglio.

During his travels to Germany and Italy, his artistic vision was motivated by the illusionary murals on the buildings, the decoration painted as an extension of the architecture itself. When he returned to the United States, Haas began to transform factory facades, barren building sides, and alleyway walls into architectural works of art; restoring the character of a neighborhood through art, using the blank walls as the city’s canvas.

In 1975, Haas visited the BAC to discuss the artistic possibilities for the BAC’s west façade. The result was an illusionistic cross-section cutaway spanning a history of architecture from Rome’s Pantheon to France’s 18th century Beaux-Arts and culminating in a contemporary veneer.

Upon his recent visit to the BAC, Haas reflected back on the role of cities in the 1970s, when he first began creating his architectural murals: “Things were being torn apart like crazy. Expressways were being chopped through neighborhoods that were vital. Buildings that had stood the test of time for sometimes centuries were being knocked down. And there was just an enormous I would call disconnect between what was going on in the infrastructure of our city versus what the cities should have been about.”

His work has sought to provide this missing connection between a city’s physical constructs and its sense of community. The BAC’s west façade mural is one of many such instances that have become iconic in nature and defines both the college and the Back Bay neighborhood.

The signing was held in the P.A.C.E. Center where the lower half of the mural is preserved inside of the building’s addition. Haas climbed up a ladder and painted his signature across the lower left portion of the mural: Richard Haas 1976. After three decades, the mural is complete with Haas’s signature finally in place.