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BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE ADVANCES PLANS FOR NEW FACILITY, PRESENTS DESIGN TO PUBLIC

New museum complex, designed by celebrated firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, to be located in the Downtown Berkeley Arts District.


View from the corner of Center and Oxford Streets. Image courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Berkeley, California — The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) today held a community open house to present the schematic design for its new facility to the public. The project, designed by the renowned New York City-based firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), will unite a repurposed former UC Berkeley printing plant at 2120 Oxford Street with a new structure.

Located in Berkeley’s arts district, the new building will be bounded by Center, Oxford, and Addison Streets, and will count as its neighbors the Berkeley Repertory Theater; Aurora Theater; Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, devoted to traditional music; and the Bancroft Library’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. The new BAM/PFA is targeted for completion in late 2015.

The architect-of-record for the new BAM/PFA building is the nationally recognized, San Francisco-based EHDD.

“UC Berkeley is pleased to share with the campus and wider community its plans for a new building for BAM/PFA,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. “Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design successfully integrates great architecture with Cal’s mission of public service and contemporary and civic life. The new museum will make BAM/PFA’s tremendous artistic and intellectual resources more publicly accessible to local, national, and international audiences. We congratulate BAM/PFA on the progress that it is making on this exciting project and look forward to opening the doors of this superb new facility to our students, faculty, staff, and the public.”

BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder added, “BAM/PFA’s dynamic exhibitions and programs will find an ideal home in the new facility designed by DS+R. The firm’s plan respects the grand interior of the existing printing plant, while adding to that building a bold new architectural form filled with sensuous colors, materials, and surfaces. DS+R’S commitment to the integration of cultural institutions into the life of cities is embodied in its embrace of transparency and openness as fundamental design principles. At once beautiful and accessible, the new BAM/PFA will be a destination for art and film lovers from throughout the Bay Area, the nation, and the world.”

University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Founded in 1963, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is UC Berkeley’s primary visual arts venue and among the largest university art museums in terms of size and audience in the United States. Internationally recognized for its art and film programming, BAM/PFA is a platform for cultural experiences that transform individuals, engage communities, and advance the local, national and global discourse on art and ideas. BAM/PFA’s mission is “to inspire the imagination and ignite critical dialogue through art and film.”

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