Architectural rendering of Ohio State’s Arts District that includes the Timashev Family Music Building and the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts Building. Credit: Courtesy of The Ohio State University.
This story was originally published April 7 and updated Aug. 22 for the Back-to-School Edition.
Ohio State arts students will soon have a new district to call home as the construction of two new Arts District buildings continues.
Located between 15th and 18th avenues, the $165.3 million project includes the creation of the Timashev Family Music Building and the new Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts building, as well as the renovation and expansion of the current School of Music in Weigel Hall, university spokesperson Dan Hedman said.
Ratmir Timashev, a 1996 Ohio State alumnus and CEO of Veeam Software, provided $17 million to the College of Arts and Sciences’ construction project, according to Ohio State News.
Construction on the Timashev Family Music Building began in June 2019 and is on schedule to be completed and ready for classes and programming by this fall. The university’s official dedication of the Timashev Family Music Building will be held on Oct. 23.
The Timashev Family Music Building’s first event will be hosted on Oct. 23 from 1-5:30 p.m. that will feature a building dedication, open house and concert. The open house will offer guests an opportunity to stroll through new rehearsal rooms, performance spaces, classrooms, studios, offices and meeting spaces. A free concert by Ohio State’s Symphony Orchestra, Choral Program, Jazz Ensemble and Wind Symphony will be held at 4 p.m., according to the College of Arts and Sciences website.
Ohio State released the most recent look inside the Timashev Family Music Building May 24. Final touches on the Music Ensemble Room and Recital Hall as well as the start of occupant move-in began in May, according to the Time and Change: Building the Future page.
The yet-to-be-named Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts building is set to open in early 2023, according to the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts District website.
“The idea is that all of the arts units will be in close proximity to one another,” Lisa Florman, associate dean of interdisciplinary studies and community engagement for the College of Arts and Sciences, said. “The sharing of spaces will foster collaborations and catalyze interactions that may, you know, make us more than the sum of our parts.”
At the start of the summer, the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts building reached a halfway point in construction — including working on electrical, mechanical and plumbing lines as well as the roof, according to the Time and Change: Building the Future page.
The Timashev Family Music Building will be next door to the newly renovated Weigel Hall, located at 1866 College Road, to create a combined 96,000-square-foot School of Music. Hughes Hall — Weigel Hall’s current School of Music counterpart — will no longer host classes, Florman said.
Arved Ashby, a professor of musicology in the School of Music since 1995, said he has taught primarily in Hughes Hall but will soon relocate to the Timashev Family Music Building.
“I’m excited simply to work in a building suited to its purpose,” Ashby said. “Hughes Hall wasn’t built for musicians, and its most basic problems are structural — unsolvable. I know I will be spending much more time in the new building than I did in Hughes.”
The new five-floor building will include classrooms, studios, offices and recording and performance spaces. The two School of Music buildings will connect through a shared lobby, according to the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts District page.
Specific design details were made to ensure sonically efficient spaces that aim to keep sound from traveling while maintaining strong acoustics, and Florman said each room is designed to be as soundproof as possible.
Following the start of construction in November 2020, the 100,000-square-foot and five-floor Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts will replace the Drake Performance and Event Center, which is located at 1849 Cannon Drive and will be demolished around 2023, Hedman said.
The Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts building will house a lighting lab, design studio, costume shop and New Works Lab for experimental projects, according to the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts District page. Likewise, film students will have access to two sound stages, editing suites, a sound lab and a screening room. Performance spaces will include a 450-seat proscenium theater as well as a hybrid thrust and black box theater.
The Timashev Family Music Building and the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts building will be within close proximity to one another, with a connecting outdoor plaza and a single box office to make them feel like one cohesive block, Florman said.
“To my mind, a district is something self-contained, whereas the image of a hub suggests spokes that radiate, in this case, across campus and out into the community,” Florman said. “That’s very much the vision of the arts at Ohio State that I’m trying to help promote. And I think these two new buildings will do a great deal to contribute to that.”
