Out & About

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The New York Sun

The design standards were high at the ground-breaking yesterday for a new center at one of the nation’s largest art and design colleges, Parsons The New School.


The center’s benefactor, Sheila Johnson, wielded a red hatchet that could have been ordered from Pottery Barn. The result of her swing: a perfect square in the wall.


Of course, this was Parsons, the school that created the legendary T-square Parsons table and that educated the design darlings of Proenza Schouler.


The Sheila C. Johnson Center, slated to be completed in 2007, is of major significance to the school, which has more than 3,000 students enrolled in degree programs, including two this semester displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The school’s first major construction project, it was made possible by the largest gift in the New School’s history, $7 million from Ms. Johnson, a trustee of the university who is on the board of governors of Parsons.


“The center will transform the way we look and also how we feel,” the president of the New School, Robert Kerrey, said.


The design challenge was more involved than simply putting up another sleek new building. The task for up-and-coming architect Lyn Rice, who designed Dia:Beacon in collaboration with artist Robert Irwin, was to connect four existing buildings to give students more – and more inspiring – space.


One of Mr. Rice’s innovations is what he calls the urban quad, modeled after the classical design of Oxford University. In the case of the New School, don’t expect a large green field. Rather, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street, Mr. Rice carved out his quad within the interiors of the buildings, even taking the elevator banks into consideration. The traffic flow has been redesigned so that “waiting areas are unified into a social space,” Mr. Rice said.


There’s lots of glass and a wall of digital displays, including a countdown clock that tells students how much time is left until the next class period.


Opening up the facades of the buildings puts student work and the students themselves on display to the community at large.


This is exactly what the dean of Parsons, Paul Goldberger, wants for the school.


The project is “assertively marking our architectural citizenship,” Mr. Goldberger said. “The Sheila Johnson Center will be our front door, our town square, our campus quad.”


Ms. Johnson, whose philanthropy is better known in Washington, D.C., and Virginia, made the bulk of her fortune founding Black Entertainment Television with her ex-husband, Robert Johnson.


She did not attend Parsons but is a longtime admirer of the school and has a talent for design, too.


“I’m an artist at heart. I know what I want,” Ms. Johnson said.


Ms. Johnson’s interest in Parsons and the New School isn’t confined to design. As a violin teacher for 18 years, she spoke passionately about the need to fund education.


“Lots of people give to the arts, to dance companies. Let’s extend our wallets to create more artists and more dancers. For that we need superior facilities at schools,” Ms. Johnson said.


This is a special month of “new” for Ms. Johnson. On September 24, she will marry the Honorable William Newman on her estate in Virginia, Salamander Farms.


The couple met – or rather, re-met – three years ago.


“I was getting divorced. He was my judge,” she said. The two had acted together 31 years before in a Negro Ensemble Company production of Lonne Elder’s “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.”


In the courtroom, Mr. Newman caught Ms. Johnson’s eye. “I asked my lawyer if I could approach the bench. We both recognized each other. Two weeks later I invited him to lunch and we’ve been together ever since,” Ms. Johnson said.


Patti Austin will perform at the wedding for 750 guests, designed by Preston Bailey. Bob Mackie is designing the wedding dress.


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