Curtis begins work on new building project

After decades of mulling its next move, the Curtis Institute of Music marked the beginning of an expansion onto the 1600 block of Locust Street yesterday with three ceremonial shovels in the ground.

"We're thrilled about what this building will do for Curtis, the city, the state, and the world of classical music," said Curtis president Roberto Díaz, before sending a shiny silver shovel into a shallow wooden sandbox assembled in front of Curtis' construction site.

The new building, one block east of the elite music conservatory's longtime perch on Rittenhouse Square, will more than double the school's space, providing housing for half its 160 students, as well as an orchestra rehearsal room considerably more commodious than current quarters, practice studios, and a cafeteria.

The structure, designed by the Manayunk firm Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, will rise four stories on Locust Street with a 10-story building set back behind it.

The state, long known as a funder of the project, quantified its contribution at yesterday's ceremonies. Pennsylvania will put $15 million toward the building from its Capital Redevelopment Assistance Program.

Gov. Rendell made the decision to support the project "because Gerry persuaded me," he said in a message read at the ceremonies by Joe Certaine, director of Rendell's Southeast Pennsylvania office.

"Gerry" persuaded a lot of people.

Though talked about intermittently for at least two decades, the project gathered steam at an unusually quick pace after Curtis board chair H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest promised $30 million from himself and his wife, Marguerite, if the school could raise another $30 million.

The goal was reached - and exceeded by $5 million - by the March 31 deadline, netting about 60 gifts, nine of which are in excess of $1 million. The Annenberg Foundation is a $5 million donor, and the Pew Charitable Trusts committed $3 million.

The new building, at just over 100,000 square feet, will be called Lenfest Hall.

"It's nice to be able to participate while we're still on this Earth and can see wonderful things happen," said Marguerite Lenfest to several dozen school staff and supporters in front of the construction site yesterday.

"We just fell in love with Curtis," said Gerry Lenfest.

The new facility will not generally serve a public function the way the school's current buildings do. There, in three ornate former mansions once owned by the Drexel, Sibley and Cramp families and another building bought in 1988, Curtis hosts visitors several times a week for student, faculty, and alumni concerts.

The construction caps years of objections and legal wrangling by neighbors on Locust and Latimer Streets over various other proposals by previous owners for residential towers.

Though yesterday was a public acknowledgment of construction, preparation of the site has been going on for months. Last week crews began putting in supports for the historic facades of 1610 Locust (completed in 1893) and 1618 Locust (built around 1855).

Everything behind those fronts will be demolished and replaced with a new, all-concrete-structure building (that is, without steel, for acoustical reasons, to avoid steel's sound conductivity).

The building in between, the former Locust Club, will be demolished entirely.

The timeline, says Curtis executive vice president Elizabeth Warshawer, is expected to go like this:

After stabilization of the historic facades and party-wall bracing, demolition on the former Locust Club will begin in mid-June and last eight weeks. The structure will not be imploded, Warshawer said, but will be taken apart in pieces. "It will be a process, not an event," she said.

Earth removal and foundation work will begin soon afterward to make way for the arrival of a construction crane in October or November.

Erection of the concrete superstructure of the building will then begin, lasting about six months.

In June 2010, restoration of the historic facades will begin, ending in late summer.

Masonry, exterior walls, windows, and roofing will be in place by the end of 2010.

Interior and fit-out of the entire building will occur in winter and spring 2011, with the facility opening to students in August 2011.

Though the new Venturi building will echo, in a blunt way, building patterns and fenestration of its historic neighbors, the new structure, designed by architect Daniel McCoubrey, will be streamlined.

"It's contemporary, but it connects with the past in its use of materials and the material themselves," said McCoubrey. Its facade will use red sandstone from the American Southwest, he said, with limestone accents.

Set back 45 feet from Locust Street, a fifth-floor garden will provide students with outdoor space landscaped by Longwood Gardens. Audio and video recording studios will be housed on the third floor. The orchestra library of scores and instrumental parts will be relocated from its current site to the new building's fourth floor.

The orchestra rehearsal space will have 35-foot-high ceilings, and acoustical design by renowned Chicago firm Kirkegaard Associates.

Other than renting office space in the Rittenhouse Square area, Curtis has occupied the same general site since its founding in 1924. This first major expansion in two decades, and its largest ever, is part of an ambitious strategic plan to help keep the school competitive.

The plan calls for renovation of existing buildings, faculty development, increased touring, and installation of in-ground fiber below Locust Street to create Internet2 capability that would allow students to take master classes with musicians all across the globe.

"The technology is going to be amazing," said Díaz.

Below are the sources of gifts of $1 million and above toward the expansion project at the Curtis Institute of Music:

H.F. "Gerry" and Marguerite Lenfest

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Annenberg Foundation

Pew Charitable Trusts

Allerton Foundation

Sueyun and Gene Locks

J.J. Medveckis Foundation

Neubauer Family Foundation

Bruce Jay Gould

Mark E. Rubenstein, in honor of his wife, Robin Rubenstein

Charidu Foundation UBS/AG Nina von Maltzahn

SOURCE: Curtis Institute of MusicEndText