GEORGE PEARL HALL School of Architecture and Planning
TOP: KIRK GITTINGS
Architect Antoine Predock attended UNM from 1954 to 1960, and he was excited when he was invited to join a competition to design the new School of Architecture and Planning. Once he won the competition, it took eight years, from 2000 to 2008, to complete the project because of changing budgets and the addition of a library. His intention was to design a building that would teach students about architecture, which he accomplished by creating interwoven planes, spaces, and volumes that demonstrate complex relationships and expose the building’s structure and mechanical systems. He created cohesion through the building’s massing and color, which he said “relate directly to the stepped forms and the earth-colored stucco that define . . . the campus.” Merging this sense of critical place with the tectonic expression of 1960s Modernism, he crafted tinted walls that recall the cliffs of Canyon de Chelly and the walls of Chaco Canyon, a modern interpretation of an ancient landscape. The building’s overall design facilitates interaction and sociability; the courtyard descends beneath the building, and the floors are angled in such a way that you can look through to the upper floors from the gallery. Predock’s idea was to let students see how you organize space, so that the various floors aren’t just “pancakes” but actually weave the space together. The expansive staircase was conceived not merely to get people from one floor to another but to provide room for people to socialize as they crossed paths, as staircases tend to be where a lot of the social life of a building happens. The building’s cantilevered façade, a plenum wall of cast-in-place reinforced concrete, was conceived to be a memorable way to present lessons of construction and a commentary on architecture’s role in shaping our world. R
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