client:    ArtCenter College of Design

type:    cultural

location:    Pasadena, California

size:    6,350 sq ft

status:    built

team:    darin johnstone, sandra hutchings, matt liese, rob ettenger, howard chen, deysi blanco, dennis lee, jacky hoang, adam fujioka, mitchel bennett

awards:    2018 AIA / Pasadena & Foothill Citation Award

darin johnstone architects

ArtCenter

Peter and Merle

Mullin Gallery

October 2018

The Peter and Merle Mullin Gallery on the ground floor of the six story 1111 South Arroyo Parkway building is designed to function as a gallery, a signifier for the college and a cultural destination in the city of Pasadena. The 6,300 square foot space is programmed to function as both a fine art and an automotive gallery, in keeping with the donor’s passions and prolific car collection, and Art Center’s dedication to innovation in Transportation Design. Inside the gallery the automobile is treated as an object of art. In the context around the gallery the automobile is treated as an instrument for viewing art. In the design, the turning path of an automobile runs through the interior spaces, and out of the building envelope to the exterior. These auto pathways form the curving walls that organize the interior gallery, the exterior courtyard, and the parking and garden areas beyond. A key design feature along one of these curving pathways, is the twelve-foot-high steel ‘fin wall’ that separates the gallery courtyard from the street. The ‘fin wall’ is designed to create a lenticular effect that allows it to be read as ‘Mullin’ when viewing north, morphing to open views into the interior when viewing west and then reading ‘Gallery’ when viewing south. The presence of this gallery on the street, at this historic nexus in the city, and the gesture of the ‘fin wall’, signifies the presence of ArtCenter in the urban and cultural landscape of the city.