Crested Butte Center for the Arts
Crested Butte, CO
- Award Year
- 2023
- Award Category
- Regional Excellence
- Architect
- Steinberg Hart with Andrew Hadley Architect
- Developer
- Center for the Arts
- Contractor
- Black Dragon Development
- Structural Engineer
- Resource Engineering Group
- Photos
- Tom Kessler Photography, James Ray Spahn, Resource Engineering Group
This historic mountain community signaled its support for the arts when it built the Center, a vibrant and inviting public arts facility. The intimate character and excellent acoustics of the Center’s 320-seat theater are primarily due to the extensive use of wood. Curved and faceted acoustical wood reflectors direct sound and can be custom-tuned for music and spoken-word performances. A gallery, art studios, and rehearsal rooms surround a double-height lobby that combines massive wood structural members, textured copper, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls to create a warm and welcoming space. The design team made creative use of wood structural systems, including glulam columns, LVL rafters, the lobby’s unique wood-and-steel 3D space-truss system, and an entry canopy with skewed glulam columns. The blue-stained cedar exterior cladding makes the Center for the Arts one of the most recognizable buildings in town. 35,600 sf / Type V-B construction