How SCAD founder Paula Wallace turned old buildings into a new campus
The Savannah College of Art and Design is a city-wide case study in historic preservation Imagine what college would look like if your favorite, most inspiring teacher from grade school started a university. That scenario describes, to a certain degree, how 29-year-old Paula Wallace, an Atlanta, Georgia, schoolteacher, ended up founding the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 1978. Through optimism, vision, and a deep understanding of how to inspire students, Wallace turned a collection of historical properties scattered about the Georgia city?s then-dilapidated downtown into a cutting-edge arts institution and the catalyst for a thriving neighborhood. Slowly acquiring and rehabilitating buildings to create elegantly restored classrooms, studios, and student housing, Wallace and SCAD used the past as an asset to shape the future. ?Today, they give tourists ghost tours in downtown Savannah,? says Wallace. ?But then, it was really a ghost town, filled with abandoned blocks and dilapidated buildings. I saw the elegance of Savannah?s architecture.?
Curbed spoke with Wallace, who recently won the Roger Milliken Honorary AIA Legacy Award for her commitment to architecture and design, about the way she built such a transformative university using historic preservation as a foundation, and her advice for making the most of historic and underutilized property.
Poetter Hall at SCAD
Look past the surface and identify a building?s true character
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