Bard College – Part 3: László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building

Located directly across the street from the CCS Hessel Museum of Contemporary Art stands a newly built structure at this liberal arts school in Annandale-on-the-Hudson, New York. The László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building was designed by Deborah Berke & Partners Architects and completed this year. The facility is accessible via the northeast front entrance and the southwest rear entryway. Parking is in the rear of the building and to get to it you use a shrouded road that is dense with vegetation.  

Paradoxically, the state-of-the-art teaching and performance facility is a pure and radiant structure with curved white stucco,  warm wood and brick details, large windows, and glass vestibule with connecting bridge. Inside the lobby space light bounces off the white walls and leads me to the double height performance space. Light toned wood and beautiful music envelope me comfortably as I sit-in on a practice session for a little while. This intimate performance hall seats 145, is flexible in its seating arrangement, and has technologies for AV recording and live streaming. Offices and teaching studios, on both levels, have well placed windows that show off the surrounding wooded landscape and let daylight illuminate the spaces. Upstairs students harmonize socially in the lounge or master music in a large central classroom. Every space in the building is devoted to the task of providing support for top-level musical education.

While waiting on the sunset, recent Bard graduate János Sutyák (a trombone master), shows me a winding muddy trail that leads down to the Hudson River and a rambling waterfall. Reinforcing the College’s environmental stance and use of geothermal wells and heat pumps in constructing this new facility. 

Bard College – Part 2: Fisher Center

While visiting Bard, I met Nick Reilingh, Box Office Manager, who was kind enough to show me around. It was interesting to learn  that in the rustic woods of the Hudson Valley, the college embraced building structures designed by prominent architects like Viñoly, Venturi, and Gehry. This year the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Artist-architect, Frank Gehry, situated the facility/art installation on the edge of the campus. I took the long driveway toward the Fisher Center and as my car made a slight left-hand turn and began a gentle decent, the building appeared as if connected to the sky as well as the land below. The magnificent stainless steel roof seems to be draped over the two theaters inside. The roof envelope sweeps upward and swoops downward, and all the while reflecting the mood of the sky above it and complementing the terrain. 

The main, Sosnoff theater, created by Yasuhisa Toyota designed acoustic shell that can be fully dismantled and allow for opera and dance, and again deployed for orchestral performances. The 900 seats are upholstered in custom fabric imprinted with all the names of Bard’s Class of 2003. The interior is voluminous, elegantly simple featuring wood and concrete. 

The one thing that struck me as incompatible with the abundant charisma of the building facade, was the first floor main entrance/lobby. As you walk in through the metal and glass doors you are met with a ominous metal wall. It towers over you and seems to be right in your face. All the building’s sculptural beauty, movement, and light got crushed as I visually crashed into a solid wall. Luckily, Nick explained that the 107,000+ square foot structure has lobbies upstairs for gathering before and after a performance. 

Leaving the concert hall, I walked down a series of cascading exterior staircases and looked back at the asymmetrical shell over the very symmetrical cultural building. Happily, once again, I perceived that lyrical energy between Gehry’s design and the sunlit sky above.

Bard College – Part 1: Blithewood Manor

The initial time I arrived at the Bard Campus, the first thing I noticed was its breathtaking natural beauty and a hidden-in-the-forest feeling. As I drove from one side of the campus to the other I was also struck by the large assortment of historic buildings, modern laboratories, gardens, landscape art installations, performance centers, and even waterfalls. I parked near by a 300 year old red maple and stretched my legs discovering the grand alabaster-white Blithewood mansion and estate.

Later I learned that, in 1903 Captain Andrew Zabriskie’s commissioned architect Francis Hoppin to create a master plan for the manor house with formal garden. Hoppin designed an eclectic structure that merged architectural and ornamental details of traditional English mansion design together with turn-of-the-century innovations. The house and its traditional Italian garden were donated to Bard College in 1951. 

Bard College restored and entrusted Blithewood to its’ Levy Economic Institute in 1987. The internationally acclaimed architectural firm of Polshek Partnership Architects (today know as ENEAD), well-recognized for new building design, historic preservation, and adaptive reuse, spearheaded its restoration. Today Blithewood possesses a twenty-first-century communication and computer systems that supports its cutting-edge research facility and offers a library, offices, lecture rooms, and a lush garden.

The beautifully manicured garden sits overlooking the Hudson River. A central fountain sets a relaxing tone and friendly faced statues echo the sweet spirit of the flowers that fill the garden beds. Protected in its stone walls and nestled on a bench among exuberant peonies you can seek sanctuary and for just a while forget the world.