This Is Columbia's Ribbon-Cutting Moment

Columbia College Chicago officially opened its new Media Production Center on Friday, February 5, 2010. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley joined Chairman of the Board Allen M. Turner, President Warrick L. Carter, MPC architect Jeanne Gang, and others on the main soundstage for a celebratory ribbon cutting.

We were there with our Flip camera, talking with students, faculty, and others who came out to celebrate the Media Production Center.

Media Production Center Ribbon Cutting

Photos: Bob Kusel ('78)

Tribune Architecture Critic Blair Kamin Reviews the MPC

"Chicago architect Jeanne Gang's lively new building for Columbia College Chicago looks nothing like her Aqua tower, the spectacular, 82-story mixed-use skyscraper with the wavy balconies. And, that is all to the good," writes Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin in Cityscapes, his daily blog. Read his take on Columbia's new building.

Columbia College Chicago Officially Opens Media Production Center

Designed for form, function, and sustainability, the 35,500-square-foot South Loop facility provides students with state-of-the-art professional production studios

(February 5, 2010) Columbia College Chicago’s first newly constructed building in its 120-year history—the $21 million Media Production Center (MPC) at the southwest corner of 16th and State Streets—will provide film and media arts students with invaluable hands-on experience in a state-of-the-art professional production studio while creating a next-generation collaborative learning environment.

The 35,500-square-foot facility, designed by Chicago architect Jeanne Gang & Studio Gang Architects, officially marks its opening today (Feb. 5) with a ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by Columbia College Chicago President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D. and Board Chairman Allen M. Turner with Mayor Richard M. Daley. The building opened to students for the start of spring semester classes on Monday, Jan. 25.

“This hands-on facility will allow Columbia College to completely change how filmmaking and other communications arts are taught,” said Dr. Carter. “Our faculty collaborated closely with the amazing team at Studio Gang to design the Media Production Center. From the outset, the goal was to provide a 21st century professional experience for our 4,200 School of Media Arts students to replicate the environment they’ll encounter in the working world.”

The MPC experience also provides for enhanced collaboration among media arts students and faculty in a variety of disciplines, with many production classes now under one roof.

“We didn’t just build a soundstage, we built an integrated curriculum encouraging interaction and collaboration between students across disciplines and departments, including Film & Video, Interactive Arts and Media, and Television,” said Doreen Bartoni, dean, School of Media Arts. “In this new age of film, video and television, segments of the industry are increasingly sharing skills and crossing boundaries—consider films like Avatar, combining both computer animation and live action footage.”

“This is our first building developed from the ground up, and we’re certainly pleased to have it come in under budget and on time—less than 12 months from our groundbreaking,” added Turner. “I’m also proud of how we were able to deliver our vision of this building as a breathtaking yet practical experience for faculty, staff and students that cannot be equaled by any other teaching facility in the world.”

The MPC was constructed for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification with a number of key sustainable design elements. They include a 50-percent green roof, radiant heating and cooling in the two soundstages, extensive use of windows for natural lighting throughout the building, and sets of lobby/mezzanine lighting fixtures that can progressively illuminate the lobby area as outdoor light decreases.

The 40,000-square-foot site, a vacant lot, was a “brown field” when it was sold to the college in 2008 by the City of Chicago specifically to build the MPC and help enhance the emerging neighborhood.

“I’ve witnessed the transformation of this formerly contaminated plot of land into an architecturally significant, environmentally sustainable building that is a welcome addition to the revitalization of this area. Already, activity generated with classes in this building is increasing patronage to local businesses,” said Third Ward Alderman Pat Dowell.

“It has been truly remarkable watching the MPC come into fruition. The quality and style of films and media we create are now limited solely by our dreams,” said senior film student Michael Lencioni, Columbia Student Government Association executive officer and student representative to the Board of Trustees.

Highlights of the Media Production Center (MPC) include:

• Two professional soundstages (7,300 square feet and 2,200 square feet) will allow for Film & Video students to experience the culture of high-end studio film production both by observation from soundstage bleachers and eventually by hands-on participation.

• A 2,000-square-foot Motion Capture Studio for the creation of 2D and 3D film and gaming will allow students to better understand and visualize human movement using sophisticated 12-camera motion capture technology at professional industry standards. The Motion Capture Studio was designed to integrate state-of-the-art learning technologies with the study of 3D computer animation, digital filmmaking and game arts.

• An animation lab, a high-tech set of classrooms, provides students with industry-leading technology for development of computer-aided design and animation.

• Four “wired” classrooms with fiber optic technology to link the soundstages and Motion Capture Studio to classes, including the camera-eye-view, so that students can learn from the processes being conducted elsewhere in the facility in real time

• A fully equipped, 2,000-square-foot Production Shop with loading dock for the design, construction and delivery of set pieces

• A docking area for the college’s two-year-old High Definition Media Production Truck that connects to internal cabling to enable live feeds from the facility with professional and student operators

• An 11-by-13-foot LED screen, suspended in the lobby, comprises seven adjustable 9-foot-high LED panels that can operate seamlessly as one screen or independently and can rotate 180 degrees for film and video viewing.

• The 25-foot–tall terra cotta Lasky Arch, an artifact from the now-demolished, nearby office of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, the parent company of Paramount Pictures formed in 1916 by Adolph Zukor. It uniquely honors Chicago’s important role in early film industry.

Media Production Center Images

ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY TOM NOWAK

A Visit to the MPC by WGN's "On the Town" reporter Ana Belaval

“On the Town” reporter Ana Belaval of WGN Morning News visited Columbia College Chicago's new Media Production Center to sample the amenities of this state-of-the-art production facility. The stories that aired on February 1 showcase the MPC Main Soundstage, the Motion Capture Studio, and the Animation Lab.

Lights. Camera. Action.

A few minutes past 8:30 on Monday morning, David Moravec, an instructor in Columbia College’s film department, asked his students to get on their feet and stand on either side of a beam of light that shone from a stage lamp after the overhead lights went out. He lit a stick of incense. The smoke drifted toward the ceiling, a gray swirl. Welcome to the basics of lighting.

So begins Chicago Journal editor Micah Maidenberg's story in the January 27, 2010 edition of the paper, as she reports on the Media Production Center, Columbia's first new building.

Read the story in the Chicago Journal.

Media Production Center Opens for Classes

Columbia College Chicago's new 35,500-square-foot Media Production Center (MPC), the first new-construction building erected in the college’s 120-year history, opens to students with the beginning of spring semester classes January 25, 2010. The opening comes just 13 months after the initial groundbreaking.

Designed from the ground up to accommodate a new way of teaching filmmaking and media production for the twenty-first century, the project saw its beginnings in conversations that began in 2001, shortly after Warrick Carter began his tenure as president of the college and made the creation of a state-of-the-art production facility one of his priorities. The project gained momentum when Allen Turner, a partner in the Pritzker Organization, became Chairman of Columbia’s Board of Trustees in 2005, acting as a catalyst to bring the project to fruition.

The innovative structure is a model for the incorporation of sustainable design and construction processes, a hallmark of architect Jeanne Gang / Studio Gang Architects. One such element is the green roof that covers 50 percent of the building. The facility also commemorates Chicago’s long role in the history of filmmaking, incorporating a 25-foot terra-cotta arch salvaged from the former Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, a parent of Paramount Pictures, whose facilities once stood nearby.

The building is anchored by a 7,350-square-foot main soundstage, with a 2,085-square-foot motion-capture studio as well as a smaller soundstage, prop and wardrobe studios, classrooms, an outdoor dock for the college’s remote media truck, a rooftop terrace, and a lofty, glass-walled lobby that acts as an informal gathering space for students.

Columbia Presents at 2009 University Film & Video Association Conference

Doreen Bartoni (Dean, School of Media Arts), Bruce Sheridan (Chair, Department of Film & Video), and Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang Architects) presented on Columbia's leadership in media education at the 2009 University Film and Video Association Conference in New Orleans in August. In The Architecture of Innovation, Bartoni, Sheridan, and MPC architect Gang focused on how architects and educators can benefit from an understanding of each other’s aims and needs. Gang described how film aesthetics informed her approach to designing a unique building that is both an innovative learning environment and a fully professional film, television, and multimedia production space. Bartoni explained how various media arts disciplines can work together in an appropriately designed facility, and Sheridan covered the ways the MPC is helping his department to rethink film education from the ground up.

Groundbreaking

From the Columbia School of Oratory’s first digs in 1890 at 24 East Adams Street to its current campus comprising 17 academic buildings and five residence halls, the college has been masterful in its reuse and recycling of existing structures. It was a partner, with other universities, in the construction of a “superdorm” at the corner of State Street and Harrison. But it had never constructed a building of its own ... until now.
Read more about the vision and concept behind the MPC