College Turns Building Re-use into Art Form
Published Aug 21, 2008
Savannah College of Art and Design finds new uses for treasured buildings.
For 30 years, the Savannah College of Art and Design has been turning out top-quality graduates in creative fields from advertising design to illustration to interior design to film and television.
But perhaps nowhere is the college’s work more on display than its main campus, where it has built a legacy by preserving historic Savannah, one building at a time.
SCAD has rehabilitated more than 60 buildings crossing over four historic districts in Georgia’s oldest city.
When the college was founded in 1978, it was one of the first in the country to offer historic preservation as a major, highly appropriate given its beginnings in the 1890s-era Savannah Volunteer Guard Armory building, now known as Poetter Hall.
“The philosophy of preservation has been with us since the start of the college, and it’s an ideal that permeates all of the departments, not just those of historic preservation and building arts,” says Connie Pinkerton, chair of SCAD’s Historic Preservation Department.
The college has an enrollment of around 9,000 students and employs more than 500 full- and part-time faculty. As those numbers have risen, the college has worked to find properties that can serve a dual purpose: house college classrooms and other facilities, and also serve as a lesson in and of themselves.
“We use some for academics, some for administrative needs,” Pinkerton says. “We’ve been able to accommodate a variety of structures.”
SCAD’s work in rehabilitating property has enhanced other projects in and around downtown Savannah and provided an ever-growing user of goods and services.
“When SCAD came in, suddenly you had students, faculty and staff coming in and living downtown, spending money in the city,” Pinkerton says. “We’re in several National Historic Register areas, and we’ve been a catalyst for other services. Preservation isn’t just one building; it’s one building in a community. We’ve been able to be a model of how preservation works.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Todd Bennett
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