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The University of Toledo Center for the Visual Arts, designed by architect Frank O. Gehry, was completed in 1993. This four-story building is the home of the University's Department of Art, which since 1921 has been housed at The Toledo Museum of Art.
The Department of Art provides baccalaureate instruction to about 350 undergraduate majors in studio art, art education and art history, and graduate instruction to about 25 master's students in art education. The Department also serves general university students and faculty and currently sustains an enrollment of approximately 3,700 students per year.
The interior spaces feature exposed structural beams, columns and steel decking, all of which are painted white. Most walls also are painted white, with doors. Baseboards and some built-in furniture warmly executed in vertical-grain Douglas fir.
A few spaces are highlighted with lively color accents: the classrooms in the basement, the Department of Art offices on the first floor and the student lounge on the third. The curtain wall, large windows and skylights provide the interior with intensely dramatic lighting, while also providing surprising and exciting views across exterior space to other portions of the building.
No two spaces are alike, each having a unique combination of plan, elevation, lighting and external view.