[ Predock ] Cornerstone Arts Center

The Cornerstone Arts Building at Colorado College was conceived from the Colorado Arts Initiative (CAI), which began as a series of conversations and brainstorming sessions among faculty in the arts and humanities as a way of living in the creative arts. The goals of the CAI evolved into the creation of a relationship where artists are brought together for the production, presentation and discussion of work in all media (two-dimensional and three-dimensional visual art, drama, dance, performance, video/filmmaking, music).

Located at a juncture between downtown Colorado Springs and Colorado College, the site for the new Cornerstone Arts Center is a threshold which gently divides the more urban and residential areas of the city from the historic campus. The design for the building takes into account the essence of the site, expressed by paths converging on and crossing the site, views toward Pike's Peak and an aspiration toward the sky. The facility will serve as the physical backbone of the arts culture on campus, defining passages and nodal points within and beyond the building, setting the stage for catalytic possibilities of encounter, creating a weblike network between art and other academic disciplines and the Colorado College community.

The Cornerstone Center for the Arts contains spaces to encourage scheduled and impromptu interdisciplinary arts events in a variety of venues. Anyone entering the building becomes a potential spectator or performer where the architecture itself is the stage. The new facility houses thrust and studio theaters, rehearsal rooms for drama, music and dance, the Colorado College experimental art gallery and technology labs for media arts, all of which are linked to one another holistically. These spaces were planned and programmed to promote and facilitate the interaction of artists and performers with each other, with casual observers and with audiences from the College and local community.

In association with Executive Architect Anderson Mason Dale