Amid the classic New England campus buildings, Johnson, home of the Program in Studio Art and the History of Art and Architecture Department, is an outlier.
Inside you’ll find studios for art, woodworking, printing, and metal fabrication, as well as the slide library with its more than 135,000 slides, and the pit, a performance and exhibition space that rises through the center of the building, ringed by ledges on each floor that students can peer over to see whatever is happening below.
But you’ll also notice raw concrete, exposed conduit and piping, and the rough edges of the Brutalist architecture. “You use concrete to look like concrete, you let the utilities show, and indicate different-sized spaces for different kinds of uses,” says Glenn Andres, professor emeritus of the history of art and architecture. “It was a reaction to the glitz of steel and glass. Brutalism was dedicated to the idea of letting it all hang out.”
The building speaks to the individualism, purpose, and exploration that happen inside.
78 Chateau Rd.
Middlebury, VT 05753