Wexner Center for the Arts

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The south side of the Wexner Center.

The Wexner Center for the Arts is a contemporary art gallery and "research laboratory" for the arts at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, USA. It commissions new work and provides for artist residencies, in addition to presenting performing arts, film and video, and other visual arts exhibitions to the public. The Wexner Center opened in November of 1989, named in honor of the father of Limited Brands founder Leslie Wexner, who was a major donor to the Center.

The Wexner Center was the first major public building designed by architect Peter Eisenman. To reflect the history of the site, the building incorporated large brick tower structures inspired by the Armory building, a castle-like structure that had burnt down on the location in the late 19th century and demolished completely in 1959. The design also includes a large white metal grid meant to suggest scaffolding, to give the building a sense of incompleteness in tune with the architect's deconstructivist tastes. Eisenman also took note of the mismatched street grids of the OSU campus and the city of Columbus, and designed the Wexner Center to alternate which grids it followed. The result was a building of sometimes questionable functionality, but admitted architectural interest.

Many notable artists have come to speak or present their art at the Wexner Center, including Gerhard Richter, Robert Rauschenberg, Anne Bogart, Philip Glass, and Julie Taymor. Though most of the exhibitions in the Wexner Center are only up for a limited time, it is home to a permanent outdoor installation designed by Maya Lin for the Center, entitled Groundswell, which is composed of rolling mounds of broken glass. In 2002, the Wexner staged "Mood River," one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of industrial and commercial design staged in America, featuring artwork by Simparch, Tony Cragg, E.V. Day, designs by Peter Eisenman, Kivi Sotamaa, and Ben van Berkel, and "products" like the Stealth Bomber, and the Redman Self-Defense Instructor suits.

Included in the Wexner Center space are a film and video theatre, a performance space, a film and video post production studio, a bookstore, cafe, and 12,000 square feet (1,100 m²) of galleries.

The original skylight of the Wexner Center developed leaks and allowed in too much sunlight that could potentially damage art works. Failing to fix the problems, The Wexner eventually covered the skylight with membrane and translucent plastic film on the curtain wall glass unit.

Sidewalk in the Wexner Center

In November 2005, the Wexner reopened after a three-year renovation in which the university replaced the entire skylight and curtain wall. The renovation originally enlisted the help of a local firm, then switched to Arup. In addition to the building envelope, the scope of renovation includes HVAC, lighting, electrical, plumbing, fire protection systems. The renovation works have minimum impact on the original architectural design while improving environmental, daylight and climate control.

With the restoration of the center as a whole, the bookstore, film and video theatre, and cafe' sections were all revamped, equipment and layout-wise. In addition, the center eliminated the fee to see exhibits (previously, Thursday had been a free day for this, and the rest of the week a nominal charge was applied). All future exhibits will be free of charge, all the time.