In the decades since Paula Wallace founded the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1979, SCAD has grown to four campuses worldwide—from its original home in Savannah to Atlanta, France, and most recently, Hong Kong. Nearly one hundred buildings dot these locations and all provide three-dimensional, tactile fuel for the creative minds that attend the university. This month, Assouline debuts SCAD: The Architecture of a University to celebrate forty of the school’s most influential structures.
Savannah College of Art & Design
“Some people collect antique furniture,” says Wallace, a passionate arts patron. “At SCAD, we collect antique buildings. It was inevitable that a book would be written about the inextricable link between SCAD’s architecture and its character as a university.” From the traditional façade of Magnolia Hall, an Antebellum home in Savannah filled with art by students, to the SCADpad in Atlanta, an experimental residential space housed in an urban parking garage, to the seventeenth-century Residence du SCAD, which provides lodging on the French campus, that link is crystal clear.
Photo: Savannah College of Art & Design
Facade of SCAD Atlanta.
Photo: Savannah College of Art & Design
The guesthouse at the Residence du SCAD. Work by painting professor Denise Bowman hangs above the bed.
Photo: Savannah College of Art & Design
A student lounge area at SCAD Hong Kong.
Photo: Savannah College of Art & Design
The SCAD marquee at the Trustees Theater on Broughton Street in downtown Savannah.
Beyond an architectural tour, the book also provides a look at the timeline of the university from its founding, to its recent expansions, including the monumental opening of SCAD FASH, a museum dedicated to fashion and film in Atlanta that features the adaptive reuse of an existing downtown building. “SCAD is a United Nations of creativity,” Wallace says. “Style rules. Fashion rules. Invention rules. And our architecture fosters that culture of creativity.” For more information or to purchase visit shopscad.com.
