College of Charleston - Simons Center for the Arts

A Modern Arts Community in a Historic City

The project dramatically transforms a constricted 1970’s building into a well-equipped, open, light-filled nexus for cross-disciplinary endeavors in music performance, theatre arts, studio arts, art history, and arts management.

The expansion adds a new black box theatre, costume shop, sculpture and painting studios, as well as new classrooms for music theory, art history, scene design, and arts management. New exhibition spaces line the main pathway from end to end. Along bustling St Philip Street in Charleston’s historic business district, the new color-saturated glazed brick and sunshade baguettes enliven the original building’s rational constraint to uplift and visually convey Simons Center’s role as the college’s home for the arts. Simons Center achieved two globes through the green globes whole-building certification program.