Culture Boom

Indianapolis policymakers have called 2005 the year of Cultural Convergence. But in years to come, local historians will look back at this year and see the culmination of a remarkable cultural building boom. In the space of less than four months, the city will have celebrated the re-openings of a dramatically expanded Indianapolis Museum of Art and Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, as well as the completion of the Artspark at the Indianapolis Arts Center.

This Friday afternoon will see the dedication and public grand opening of the new Herron School of Art and Design, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hall on the campus of IUPUI.

These new facilities represent a major increase in the city’s cultural capacity, providing for the exhibition of traditional and contemporary art and sculpture, as well as platforms for public gatherings, programming and educational opportunities that have, quite simply, not existed here before.

Also of note: These new openings represent a trifecta of sorts for Jonathan Hess of local architectural firm Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf. As architect of record for Herron, the Eiteljorg and the IMA, Hess is having a singular impact on how people in Indianapolis experience the visual arts — by luck or by design, Hess has become the city’s cultural stage manager.

How the rest of us will respond, not just to the new architecture, but to the new experiences these buildings and grounds encompass, remains to be seen. One thing, though, is certain: By this summer’s end, Indy’s cultural map will have been transformed for at least another generation. What follows is a kind of guide to the new additions that will be opening in June and August, as seen through the eyes of the chief executives who have shepherded their respective institutions to this point.

Valerie Eickmeier, dean of the Herron School of Art and Design, may be smiling, but she’s not kidding when she says that Herron’s move from its site on 16th Street and Talbott has been 35 years in the making. It dates back to 1969, when Herron became part of the Indiana University system. At that time, Herron and the Indianapolis Museum of Art were combined. Then, in 1970, the IMA moved to its new home on 38th Street and people predicted that Herron would make its move to the IUPUI campus in five years. “It’s been the five-year plan,” Eickmeier says. “Every five years it’s another five-year plan.”

When Eickmeier arrived at Herron in the fall of 1982, she was assured that Herron would be moving in … five years. “People in the back of the room were snickering,” Eickmeier recalls. “I wondered what that was about. Ten years later, I was the one snickering in the back of the room.”

No one is snickering now. On June 3, the new Herron School of Art and Design, also known as Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hall, will open its doors to the public for the first time. The new building, designed by Jonathan Hess, more than doubles the number of available classrooms and studios. It also contains an 8,000-square-foot library, a 240-seat auditorium, 4,200 square feet of gallery space, as well as a terrace balcony, plenty of faculty offices, a student lounge, gift shop, grand hall for receptions and special events and a sculpture garden.

“It’s easy to focus on the tangible things,” Eickmeier says of her new facility. “The beautiful building and the fact that it’s a great location in a cultural district in the heart of downtown. We’ll have this great opportunity to link campus and community.”

Eickmeier is certain the new building will make more visible a public presence that Herron has maintained, often with little fanfare, over the years. Thanks to its new location, canal walkers will be able to visit the new sculpture garden and expanded galleries. Non art majors will find it easier to take art appreciation classes, and the general public will find easier access to Saturday school programs and activities like art camps. “I think people will see that we’re a cultural organization serving the community.”

Other programs that will be free and open to the public will include seven or eight shows per year in the expanded Herron Gallery, as many as 10 programs per year by visiting artists/lecturers and an on-going sculpture program that will see 16 sculptures by local, national and internationally known sculptors being displayed for 18 months at a stretch in the new sculpture garden.

There are currently 830 students enrolled at Herron. This number will eventually grow to 1,000. Eickmeier believes the new building will make Herron more competitive, as far as attracting the best students and faculty members from across the country. To this end, it has provided the platform for creation of a graduate program. Herron’s first master’s degree will be in visual communications and will begin in fall 2006, with more graduate programs due to be rolled out over the next five years.

Eickmeier wants talented students to see Herron and, by extension, Indianapolis as an attractive destination. “Hopefully, they’ll stay here once they graduate. I think graduate programs in art and design schools really deliver to the community.”

Herron’s updated facilities will certainly have an impact on the lives of its students. There will be natural light in the painting studios as well as theater lights for still lifes and models, proper ventilation for printmakers and photographers, adequate space for installation artists and, Eickmeier adds, “We’ll get furniture design out of the basement.”

Another advantage the new building will provide is the allowance of social spaces. At the old campus, the parking lot was the only place where students could congregate. Now, students will have plenty of room — both indoors and out — to socialize and engage in the process of creating their own culture. “That will build such an energy,” Eickmeier says. “I think we’ll see that very shortly. Students will figure out how to make the most of this space.

“It’s an interesting place we’ve come to,” Eickmeier observes of this milestone in Herron’s history. “Where you come to the realization that you’ve met that goal. It’s a wonderful building. The architecture’s wonderful. Everything it represents is great. But it’s still just a stage that’s set. It was a necessary requirement for what the long-term goals are.”

John Vanausdall makes no effort to conceal his wonder as he watches workmen putting the finishing touches on the Eiteljorg’s new sculpture garden. A waterfall sculpture by Truman Lowe, curator of contemporary art for the Smithsonian’s Native American museum in Washington, D.C., and an artist who already has work in the Eiteljorg’s ground-breaking collection of contemporary art, is being installed. “Five o’clock in the afternoon,” Vanausdall says, “this is a place for people to sit and catch their breath.”

That the Eiteljorg has grown is obvious to any passerby. The museum has doubled its amount of public space. There are new galleries, including dedicated spaces for the museum’s renowned collection of contemporary art by Native Americans as well as a special gallery for the recently acquired Gund Collection featuring works by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell. There is 6,000 square feet of educational space, which will allow for classes, workshops and programs by Native American artists-in-residence. But the most dramatic difference may be along the canal, or what used to be the museum’s back. Now the Eiteljorg has two faces: its familiar face fronting Washington Street and its new portal that takes advantage of canal and park views and provides the city with one of its most original public spaces, encompassing nearly three acres of gardens and terrace.

Vanausdall, the museum’s president, is delighted by the way things have turned out. “But,” he says, “I think what has happened to our mission is probably more important.”

The Eiteljorg’s expansion reflects the growth and maturation of the institution. The new gallery spaces will not only enable the museum to display its contemporary collection, which, thanks to the biennial Eiteljorg Fellowship, makes the Eiteljorg the nation’s leader in this field, it will also allow for more changing exhibitions, like the current show of 150 images by iconic photographer Edward Weston, as well as upcoming shows dealing with the intersection of Native American and African-American cultures and a pop art blast focusing on western-themed works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

The Eiteljorg has also forged a unique bond with the Smithsonian that Vanausdall calls “a deep relationship.” Through this relationship, the Eiteljorg gets access to the preeminent Native American collection in the world — 800,000 objects representing all the tribes in North America. The alliance paid dividends during the Eiteljorg’s recent Lewis and Clark exhibition. The museum’s expansion will provide more opportunities for special exhibits involving the national museum.

In addition to galleries, the Allen Clowes Sculpture Court, a circular room lit by nine skylights, adds a new dimension to the museum’s programming capabilities, providing a space for drum groups, musical performances and lectures in a setting surrounded by monumental Native and western sculptures.

But as dramatic as the changes are on the museum’s interior, its outdoor gardens and terraces promise to make an even bigger impact. Ratio Architects collaborated on the garden space, as did Native American consultants. A circular garden called “Symbols of the Universe” features symbols universal to all tribes including the four directions and the stars, sun and moon. “It’s designed to be a space that’s very programmable,” Vanausdall says.

Another addition is the Sky City Café. “Our Sky City is raised up above the canal,” Vanausdall says, “with gorgeous views not only of the museum’s gardens, but of the canal and the park.” Open during museum hours, with lunch service at midday, the café will offer Southwestern- and Native American-inspired dishes. If they choose, visitors can enter the café off the canal.

The Eiteljorg will celebrate its opening on Saturday and Sunday, June 11 and 12 with two full days of performances and demonstrations. Beneath his hardhat, John VanAusdall smiles — and not just because he won’t have to wear one of those awkward toppers anymore. “I’ve been looking at these plans now for nine years,” he says. “And it’s bigger, better and more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.”

For Joyce Sommers, president of the Indianapolis Art Center, the completion of Artspark, which has its official opening Aug. 20, underscores the IAC’s sense of place. “We have a gateway from the White River,” she says, gesturing toward the river’s bank, “a gateway from the Monon Trail and a gateway from College Avenue.”

Gateways are an appropriate metaphor for this institution whose mission is about making art — and artmaking — accessible to everyone. Artspark realizes a vision that was first drawn by architect Michael Graves in 1996 when he was commissioned to design a new facility for the Arts Center. Graves, with the encouragement of the IAC board and staff, envisioned the building that has since become a Broad Ripple landmark, but he also created a plan for the IAC’s grounds, extending to the Monon Trail and the river.

The result is Artspark, 12 acres of gently curving walking paths that sinuously make their way through a variety of garden spaces and provide a shady setting for the exhibition of sculptures, earth art and environmental installations. As Sommers points out, the process of landscaping Artspark has also opened up some remarkable views of the White River, making it a more visible presence than it has been before.

“The whole idea is to make a really beautiful environment for sculpture,” Sommers says. There will be 27 pieces on display when Artspark opens. A few of these will be permanent installations, including new works by Robert Stackhouse, John Simms, Sadashi Inuzaka and, thanks to a collaboration with the Eiteljorg, Truman Lowe. But many more will be temporary, up for 18 to 24 months. “We were cautioned that a park can become stagnant and you need to keep a dynamic going,” Sommers explains. “That’s perfect for our mission, which is about today’s artists.”

These works will be set within a thoughtfully planned landscape. Over 200 trees have been planted, as have various types of perennial wildflowers and indigenous grasses. The pathways through these plantings are wheelchair accessible and illuminated at night. “My idea,” Sommers says, “is we light the trees and always have it open.”

Artspark will be free and open to the public. Sommers raised $5.6 million to complete the project, of which $2 million has been set aside for the creation of a maintenance fund. Now that the park is about to become a reality, Sommers has her sights set on completing the next phase of the IAC’s development, the creation of outdoor pavilions for sculptors on the east end of the building. “That will put people closer to artmaking,” she says.

Long one of this city’s most entrepreneurial and ebullient arts advocates, Joyce Sommers is delighted by what she sees happening — at the IAC, the Eiteljorg, Herron, the IMA and elsewhere. “Indianapolis is so exciting,” she says, looking back at Artspark from the Monon bridge across the White River. “It’s synergism and serendipity happening at the same time.”

IMA

If men could give birth, Jonathan Hess would feel like he’d just had triplets. The Indianapolis Museum of Art has just had its opening weekend, which means that Hess has attended enough galas and special events to last most people for at least a year. But Hess has Herron to look forward to … and then the Eiteljorg.

Hess’ first experience with coming to the end of a big project happened when the Eiteljorg had its original opening 15 years ago. “I think that was my first bout with letting go after five years [of work]. All of a sudden you’re done. You give it over to the owner and it’s in the public domain. That was a curious time for me — professionally and personally and emotionally.”

Hess pauses. Then: “You learn from those things.”

The fact that he has now played a significant role in the lives of so many of the city’s major cultural institutions is not lost on Hess, who says he’s humbled by it. “I’m really interested in the architecture of a place,” he says. “I don’t think I can define that as an indigenous, stylistic interpretation of that place. I think it is about all those sensibilities we call Midwestern.”

Asked to define Midwestern, Hess laughs as if to say it’s impossible. But then he reels off a brief list that includes concern for people, a process driven by discussion and collaboration, and really caring about what the client has to say.

“There’s nothing magical in what we do,” he says. “It’s planning and there’s hard work — and there is a way that you look at the world.”

In the case of the IMA, Hess says he’s most pleased with the integration of the landscape, the site and the building. The Sutphin Fountain, he adds, “galvanized the solution.”

The Herron project began as an effort to convert an existing building, the old Law School, into an art school. “We were looking for ways not to disguise the old building, but to actually envelop it,” says Hess, who felt the Law School space still did not provide “optimal” spaces for helping people think about and create art.

Then Valerie Eickmeier succeeded in raising additional money, which enabled everyone involved to rethink the building’s design, making it taller — and a better space for art. “It’s wonderfully Spartan,” Hess says. “I’ve really appreciated seeing the sculptures on the site. There’s an externalization to the internal workings. To have that site and that art … it’s a nice amalgam.”

As for the Eiteljorg, Hess says, “I think it’s wonderful to see that institution, in a sense, come of age.”

When Hess created the Eiteljorg’s initial design, its site and the context it found itself in were quite different than they are today. The Eiteljorg was just the second building in White River Park and the canal had yet to be executed. Now, Hess says, “All of the potentials now are being lived out on the site.” This means, in particular, opening the museum up to pedestrians passing along the canal.

“The first time through we were basically designing gallery space. This time it’s heavy on educational and staff support space. We couldn’t have conceived of the mission [the Eiteljorg] had to respond to.”

Next up for Hess will be the design for a new medical education and administration building on the IUPUI campus, as well as some downtown condominium projects. The problem-solving process — an understanding of sites, concepts and aspirations — that helped create new models for the IMA, Herron and the Eiteljorg will begin again. “That’s the only way I know how to do it,” Hess says. “You have to put so many things in the rucksack before you start to solve it. Part of that, for me, is the way you look at the world — that’s the container for all that stuff.”