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New classroom, open to the skylit ceiling.
allowed for more visible interventions and a contemporary design
aesthetic. These classrooms feature glass walls and partitions
that delineate teaching spaces from circulation, but have open
ceilings—dampened with acoustical baffles—to take fullest
advantage of the existing gallery laylights. These rooms, Duffy
said, were “the one place in the building where we had to build
boxes within boxes. And so that opened up the possibility, and
the necessity, of making something new within something old.”
The success of the first phase is that it’s hardly noticeable.
Yet with the second, the modern intervention of new teaching
spaces within existing, historic galleries is strikingly
contemporary without being obtrusive. Combined, these two
phases add up to functional gallery spaces that meet elevated
conservation standards paired with schoolrooms that aim to steer
the next generation of artists toward exhibitions upon those
gallery walls, allowing GWU to continue the Corcoran’s mission. Classroom space before renovation. Copyright LEO A DALY

36 (RE)DEDICATED TO ART