Metal lightens and enlivens the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center
Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., is a liberal arts college that believes exposure to the arts is important for all its students. Since 1965, its Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center has been a space that celebrated the arts, music, their students and faculty, and the surrounding community. But recently, this center was comprehensively renovated and expanded.
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The first phase includes the Music building, a fully renovated Concert Hall, added and improved rehearsal and performance space, and a new Arts Commons in the central core of the building, housing new art history classrooms and a new art gallery. Metal played a part in this phase and was used because of its durability.
Maplewood, Minn.-based MG McGrath Inc. fabricated and installed approximately 29,000 square feet of metal on the Performing Arts building, including both interior and exterior applications. Materials on the exterior included 0.040 5005 (post anodized) aluminum custom fabricated by MG McGrath into a MG-R Seam Panel profile with exposed face dimensions ranging from 8 to 12 inches combined with varying reveal widths. The 0.040 5005 Aluminum flat sheet was provided by Anoka, Minn.-based Firestone Metal Products, fabricated by MG McGrath Inc., and anodized by Minneapolis-based Hiawatha Metalcraft prior to being installed on the building.
“Anodized aluminum is created by dipping millfinished aluminum in a series of specific chemicals at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time and passing a certain amount of electrical current through it,” says Jono Semlak, project manager at MG McGrath. “Compared to a painted aluminum finish, anodizing (with all the variables noted above) will exhibit color variation and will slightly change colors as you look at it from different angles. This can be seen with the sun on it or even on a cloudy day.”
MG Composite-Wet Joint Panel System fabricated from 4-mm black anodized panels from Chesapeake, Va.-based ALPOLIC by Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc. were also used on all elevations, as were louvers from Delano, Minn.- based Industrial Louvers. The panels and louvers were installed on the exterior of the building at varying reveals to provide natural light into the building.
On the interior, MG McGrath installed perforated rib panels supplied by Lancaster, Pa.- based Fabral, expanded metal ceilings supplied by Birmingham, Ala.-based AMICO, and MG McGrath Composite panels fabricated with material supplied by Chesapeake, Va.-based ALPOLIC by Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc.
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“On the north façade of the Music Building, which faces visitors as they enter campus from the north, we sought a bold and memorable expression that said something about the activities within,” says Douglas M. M. Gerlach, AIA, LEED AP, and senior associate at HGA Architects and Engineers, the Minneapolis-based firm that served as the project’s architect. “We worked with MG McGrath to create a deep, textured light-bronze metal façade consisting of custom-fabricated, vertical panels of triangular shape and plan. The angle of the panels changes across the facade, playing with light and shadow. The pattern of these panels was inspired by a graphic analysis of the musical composition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”
One of the biggest challenges on this project was making certain panels fit and timed out accurately around the windows because the panels had multiple different-sized reveals ranging from 1 to 4 inches. “The use of metal was very accommodating when making the custom-sized panels because it gave us the opportunity to make the panels a nontypical size, so they timed out with the windows correctly,” says Semlak. Now with phase one successfully completed, phase two with metal being a major element, is on its way soon.
Macalester College Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, St. Paul, Minn.
Completed: Spring 2012
Total square footage: 27,240 square feet
Building owner: Macalester College
General contractor: McGough Construction, St. Paul, Minn.
Architect: HGA Architects and Engineers, Minneapolis
Anodizer: Hiawatha Metalcraft, Minneapolis; MG McGrath Inc., Maplewood, Minn.,
Louvers/sunscreens: Industrial Louvers, Delano, Minn., www.industriallouvers.com
Metal wall panels: Fabral, Lancaster, Pa., www.fabral.com;
Firestone Building Products Inc., Anoka, Minn., www.firestonebpco.com;
AMICO, Birmingham, Ala., www.amico-online.com;
ALPOLIC by Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America Inc., Chesapeake, Va., www.alpolic-usa.com
