by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

How Do You . . . provide museum-quality space while capturing the industrial nuances of a town and its rugged landscape?

Summary: In the valley beneath Idaho’s Bald Mountain sits the picturesque resort town of Ketchum, Idaho, once a successful mining and sheep trading town. Now a popular snow skiing destination for the West Coast and home to approximately 3,000 residents, the town offers abundant recreational and cultural opportunities. Among its newest offerings will be a facility for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts (SVCA), designed by Tom Kundig, FAIA, principal of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen in Seattle.

Making do
SVCA has served the community of Ketchum and the Wood River Valley for 35 years, now reaching 25,000 visitors annually. SVCA Executive Director Sam Gappmayer describes the organization’s mission as threefold, “We do programming in the visual arts, performing arts, and humanities art education, so we’re sort of a hybrid organization.” Currently housed in what once was the headquarters for a goggle manufacturing company, SVCA has long outgrown its present building. “It’s just way too small,” says Gappmayer. “We’ve outgrown it significantly. In fact, we’re doing programming all over the place in churches, senior centers, at schools. I mean, we’re decades beyond this building.”

Currently making do with 4,700 square feet of adapted space, SVCA hopes to break ground in one year on the planned two-story, 43,000-square-foot building that will meet present needs for exhibit schedules and programs while allowing some room to grow. The new facility will offer museum-quality exhibition space and galleries for rotating exhibitions, a 240-seat auditorium, expanded classrooms, a public resource center, offices and reception areas, an underground parking garage, and a multi-use landscaped outdoor area.

Creating a home
The organization conducted an extensive national search for an architect with experience in cultural facilities, museums particularly, who would design a building that’s contemporary in design yet sensitive to the town’s identity as a Rocky Mountain resort. Kundig was chosen because his projects convey reverence for materials while combining art and craft. His resulting design concept is based on transparency and flexibility.

The new facility will feature an exterior that is largely transparent on street level and a wrap-around wood sunscreen that incorporates operable shutters to control light. Movable gallery walls will allow curators to adapt the space to their vision for each exhibition. Kundig’s design will offer views into the lobby and galleries, and at night the center will glow from the inside out allowing passersby to glimpse the internal landscape.

Industrial sensibilities
The building design employs Kundig’s signature melding of industrial sensibilities and materials with an intuitive understanding of scale. As a nod to the historic mining community, the exterior will be a mix of reclaimed brick, wood, COR-TEN steel, and extensive panels of glass. Inside, the building’s open design leaves visible structural elements of pillars and diagonal steel supports. Outside, the angled roof gently mimics the slopes of the mountains behind it, drawing the eye upwards. On the north side, an attractively landscaped outdoor area accommodates sculpture, small performances, and outdoor films as well as providing room for classes to work directly from nature.

“It’s going to be an incredibly beautiful addition to downtown,” says Gappmayer. “I think [Kundig] just hit the target. It’s a beautiful contemporary building and it’s also responsive to our culture and our position as a Rocky Mountain ski resort.” Gappmayer notes further that although the building is not pursuing LEED® certification, they will be using LEED’s point system as a guideline for incorporating sustainability in the design. Construction is slated to begin next July, with the opening planned for 2010.