BYU’s Arts Building opened this fall semester.
The College of Fine Arts and Communications held a grand opening ceremony on Oct. 10 for the new building. The festivities included music, dance and performances from the arts programs.
The building includes 275,000 square feet of spaces designed to create, explore and digest art of every kind. This will make it one of campus’ largest buildings by square footage.
The building also boasts plenty of performance and studio spaces — including a large proscenium theater with three-level seating for up to 800 guests — and is projected to host more than 500 performances a year.
It also provides a modular Studio Theatre, prop areas and even a costume shop, allowing for students to change the stage and seating spaces to fit the needs of their production.
Not to be outdone by the theatre facilities, 12 labs, 28 classrooms and 29 studios all encourage interdisciplinarity, collaboration and creativity between art and design students.
Alongside spaces to create art will be spaces to enjoy art. For art and design students, this means living galleries that showcase the work of current students.
Though the Arts Building is all about the new, it won’t forget what came before.
Paying tribute to its parent, the Arts Building sports the same terrazzo — a mosaic-like design element — as the stairs and benches of the late Harris Fine Arts Center.
The Harris Fine Arts Center, or HFAC, held generations of art students until its demolition in spring 2023.
Designed by famous architect William Pereira, the modernist structure was the longtime home of the arts at BYU.
Madeline Rupard, an assistant professor in BYU’s Art Department, explained her feelings about the new era that the Arts Building ushers in. As an artist, she often explores life’s contrasts through painting natural scenes set against modern elements. Her work can be viewed here.
“Overall, the new building serves our student’s needs better, but the sacrifice of beauty and architectural vision of the old HFAC is felt in my heart,” she said.
The HFAC may never quite leave Rupard’s heart.
“I will not forget waking up from naps as a student to the sound of a student practicing the French horn or lunch concerts in the atrium. It felt a little bit like Hogwarts.”
Max Jennings, a theater education major, is an art student now walking the halls of the new Arts Building.
Jennings will be a part of a performance of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in the Arts Building once it opens, and is excited to have a new canvas to create with.
Jennings has also spent time in the West Campus Building, which temporarily housed the arts programs, and is grateful to have a place that is specifically made for theatre.
“I think I'm most excited for the kind of facilities that we have to put on really, really cool shows,” he said. “It's like we have all of our tools back in our belt again.”
Lucy Shepherd is in BYU’s tight-knit Music Dance Theatre program, a program with a little over 50 students. She will be using the new Arts Building to perform, and says that the goal of many in her small program is to go on to perform professionally.
“You know everybody in the program and it feels like a little family,” Shepherd said.
A new building for her discipline means more space, specialization and freedom.
“I am most excited to make new memories performing in the new renovated, dedicated spaces that they have for performers,” Shepherd said.