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Baker Road Restoration Project receives Building of America Award
College of Music & Dramatic Arts at Louisiana State University to be featured in upcoming Real Estate and Construction Review

Thanks to a recent renovation project, Louisiana State University has a “new and improved” facility for its School of Music and Theatre Department.

According to the project’s architect of record, HMS Architects, APC, the project involved a major renovation of the university’s existing 1932 building. The original building had been added onto during the years, with various outbuildings tucked around it, and this renovation cleared out these outbuildings and brought organization to the previous expansions. The entire building was gutted, except for the Art Deco lobby and proscenium theater, both of which were restored. The building’s perimeter was treated with the same language as the original facade, utilizing the campus standard exposed aggregate plaster and bronze fenestration, according to HMS Architects.

“The project is unique because it maintains the historical look both inside and outside, matching the campus vernacular while providing a compact and functional building with all of today’s necessary amenities,” said Keith Steger, studio director for HMS Architects.

The new construction brings together the building into a cohesive volume, which provides performance, rehearsal, instruction and practice facilities for the School of Music and Theatre Department, according to the university. Now, the building includes a renovated Art Deco 424-seat proscenium theater, a new dance studio, a black box theater, a movement studio, a percussion rehearsal hall, a scene shop, a costume shop, a prop shop, seven classrooms, 20 faculty studios, 42 music practice rooms, numerous faculty offices and a host of support spaces. The quantities of rehearsal, classroom, office and practice spaces allow for flexibility in the curriculum and the expansion of the music and theater programs, according to HMS Architects.

Among the project’s design drivers was housing all the necessary program spaces within the existing site. Demolition of the outbuildings and portions of the main building was key in overcoming this obstacle. Additional design issues included providing critical adjacencies between performance spaces, shops and dressing rooms, as well as properly isolating the acoustically sensitive spaces.

“The final design brought new clarity to the circulation and visual balance to a discordant series of prior additions and related buildings,” said Charles B. Montgomery, AIA, principal with HMS Architects. “Our solution restores and enhances the distinctive Art Deco elements of the original…proscenium theater and main lobby. The new design overhauls an obsolete building infrastructure while working within the boundaries of a very restricted site and budget.”