SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 30, 2002)— AUERBACH POLLOCK FRIEDLANDER, performing arts and media facilities designers and AUERBACH GLASOW, architectural lighting designers, announce completion of work on the new Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at the University of California – Davis.

AUERBACH POLLOCK FRIEDLANDER, based in San Francisco and New York, are theatre consultants for the 1,800-seat Barbara K. and W. Turrentine Jackson Hall, a multi-purpose venue for touring attractions and acoustic music events. The new hall marks the fulfillment of the University’s long-awaited goal – a world-class arts destination, serving the UCD community and the greater Sacramento area. The Mondavi Center is also a commitment in the further development of UC Davis Presents – the campus affiliate of UC Presents – one of the state’s most noteworthy arts booking organizations. Until completion of the Center, regional and national shows were often staged in remote, off-campus venues as far away as Sacramento. In addition to arts programming, the Center will also host University meetings, lectures and ceremonies.

The AUERBACH POLLOCK FRIEDLANDER team includes S. Leonard Auerbach, ASTC, President and Principal Designer; Adam Shalleck, AIA, Senior Associate, Project Manager and Designer; Mike McMackin, Principal, Technical Designer.

San Francisco based AUERBACH GLASOW are architectural lighting designers for the Mondavi Center’s performance venues and public spaces. AUERBACH GLASOW’s lighting for the lobbies and audience chambers was designed to enhance the expansive spaces and sumptuous palette of materials that this building offers to the public.

The AUERBACH GLASOW team includes S. Leonard Auerbach, IALD, LC, President; Larry French, IALD, LC, Principal Designer and Principal-in-Charge; Richard Osborn, Senior Associate, Project Manager and Designer; and Yukiko Yoshida, Designer.

The Mondavi Center’s design architect is BOORA Architects, Portland, Oregon. Acoustical consulting is provided by McKay Conant Brook, Westlake Village, California.

FACT SHEET: AUERBACH GLASOW

Overview

The architectural lighting for the Mondavi Center is faithful to the modernist design of the building, in that the illumination emphasizes the impressive volumes, planes, and materials of the building while most of the lighting fixtures themselves are not prominent. This clear aesthetic, together with the use of state of the art light sources and controls, gives the facility a sophisticated lighting system which enhances its impressive architecture.

Public lobbies

The main entry to the building is a progression from a large front plaza defined by a tall wide sunscreen, which leads to a glass fronted triple height front lobby space, which leads to a triple height sandstone wall which is fronted by balconies and perforated by openings which lead into the performance hall.

This entry progression is visible from a distance, and can be seen from the nearby freeway. The lighting for this entry was designed not only to enhance the experience of individuals walking through this sequence of spaces, but also to provide the Mondavi Center with a night time presence which would be appreciated from both near and far views, and which would serve as one of the means by which this performing arts venue announces itself to the world.

The lighting in the front lobby areas begins with metal halide sources for the highest ceilings near the glass lobby front. The metal halide downlights in this zone blend with late afternoon and evening daylight and with the metal halide downlights and uplights at the sunscreen outside. The metal halide fixtures also provide an energy-efficient means to light the building at night after closing.

Deeper into the lobby space, where the materials are warmer - wood and sandstone - and the spaces more human-height, halogen incandescent sources are used. These sources also emphasize the verticality and texture of the sandstone walls in places where the architect has created openings in the lobby floors to dramatize the changes in lobby heights and levels.

Automated lighting controls allow the building operators to vary the look of the lobbies to respond to daily and seasonal daylighting changes, and to express the building’s various states of use -- open just before a Jackson Hall performance, open during a Studio Theater performance only, closed for the evening, and so forth.

Jackson Hall – The Mondavi Center “Main Stage”

In collaboration with the architect, the Jackson Hall lighting was designed not only to emphasize the magnificent volumes and materials of this two-balcony space, but to allow changing the lighting to change the perceived size of the audience area.

Accents and decorative sconces on close-in wood planes can be emphasized to give the space a more intimate look, for smaller events and audiences, or simply to give a different feeling to full-audience events.

Broader washes of light on the outer stone shell of the audience chamber can be balanced with the inner lighting on wood planes to emphasize the largeness of the hall when appropriate.

A wood canopy masking the ceiling technical catwalks is accented with end-lit fiber optics.

The incandescent lighting for performances is supplemented through most of the hall with a separate energy-efficient metal halide system for rehearsals, lectures, and work lighting.

The Studio Theater

The architectural lighting in the studio theater is designed to be as flexible and reconfigurable as the room itself. Downlights over the seating are hung just above the tension grid and may be physically moved or controlled in independent groups to respond to varied seating or other arrangements in the space below. Wall washers highlight the warm wood walls that make this room more than just a technical box, but these wall washers can also be controlled to adapt to a variety of activities in the space.

As in the larger Jackson Hall, the incandescent lighting system in the Studio Theater is supplemented by a separate energy efficient metal halide system for rehearsals, classes, and work lighting.


AUERBACH POLLOCK FRIEDLANDER Press Release