As art students and faculty return to campus this fall, they are welcomed to a building with creativity at its core.
When Kate Bingaman-Burt joined the Portland State University arts faculty in 2008, she also joined an ad-hoc committee to design and plan the school’s new building.
“It seemed so far out of reach and such an impossible endeavor,” she says.
Nearly 20 years later, Bingaman-Burt, associate director and professor, is finally welcoming students into that building — the new home for the Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design.
“Being part of the evolution of this building has been a large part of my time at PSU,” she says. “it’s surreal that we’re now standing in that space.”
The new Art Building is a four-story, 100,000-square-foot structure featuring an abundance of natural light and exposed Douglas fir beams. Designed by LEVER Architecture, the building’s spacious and adaptable rooms allow for multiple configurations. Even some of the interior walls are movable, allowing the facility to continue to evolve.
Seeing a public university like PSU open a huge art building — it gives me a lot of hope. The university is showing that this is worthy of investment.
Where before the school was housed in several buildings across campus, now all of the visual arts are housed in the same place. Textiles and fashion design, photography, publishing and emerging technologies occupy different wings and floors of the building. The arrangement more closely reflects how students in the school are taught — by exploring the field of art broadly while pursuing a well-rounded curriculum in art and design.
From the first-floor galleries to the fourth-floor studios, the new art building is providing students and faculty with spaces to create, innovate and collaborate across disciplines, and helping to define the future of the arts in Portland and beyond.
SPACE TO CREATE
“It’s such a powerful thing to have an idea, make it, reproduce it and then get it into people’s hands,” says Bingaman-Burt, whose expertise crosses graphic design and publishing.
Now, everything students need to go from idea to finished product is housed in one space.
In the textile studio, traditional floor looms and computerized looms sit side-by-side. A dye area invites students to experiment with creating natural dyes using flowers from the building’s rooftop garden. There’s also a digital knitting machine, which produces sweaters and knitwear much like a 3-D printer.
Down the hall, the fashion lab allows students to assemble their textiles into wearable art, costumes, fashion and more. There are nearly 20 sewing machines, a digital embroidery machine and a range of size-inclusive mannequins where students can test their designs.
“In the old facilities, students would have to haul their materials from one building to dye them, to another building to weave, and so on,” Alison Heryer, Sue Horn-Caskey & Charles F. Caskey professor in Textile Arts & Costume Design, says. “It was more difficult for students to make connections and incorporate different techniques into their practice.”
In the old photography facilities, parts of the darkroom were a converted closet on the opposite side of the building from the shared classroom space. It was so small that students would have to watch demonstrations in shifts. Now, the darkroom abuts the studio and is big enough to accommodate a class of 14 students. The studio also has a processing sink, which is critical for developing film, and an infinity wall, which is an industry-standard backdrop for photoshoots.
In the publication studio, the school’s risograph — which was previously stuffed in the corner of a small computer lab — now stands front and center. The risograph, which the students and faculty affectionately call “Flo the Riso,” creates vibrant prints by working from a stencil and layering one color at a time. The publication space also features several binding and production tools for creating zines, a guillotine for cutting large stacks of paper and several button makers.
Ember Gulden, BFA ʼ26, says having all of these resources in one place will be transformative for students. Previously, if Gulden wanted to create a project using a risograph and large format printer, they would have to go back and forth between different buildings just to print their work.
“It seems small when it’s just one time,” Gulden says, “but that distance adds up. It can be discouraging when you’re in a flow state to have to go all over rather than stay in the flow of your work.”
Gulden’s interests lay primarily in bookmaking, printmaking and photography. Their thesis project involved making collages from their own images, which they describe as “the paper form of quilting.” Yet Gulden didn't cross paths with the publication suite, which was housed in a separate building from the rest of the art studios, until their junior year.
In the new building, the risograph and printing studio are hard to miss. Housed on the first floor, the studio sports large windows that face the South Park Blocks and an eye-catching wall completely covered with colorful prints. “Now, students, even if they aren’t in the art program, can see what’s offered inside,” Gulden says. “I think it will create more interest in the program and trying things out.”
Though Gulden graduated in June, they will be back on campus this fall as part of Launch, the department’s newly founded residency program. Launch invites alumni who have graduated in the last three years to use studio space in exchange for their support managing the new facilities.
The new home of the Jordan Schnitzer School and all it offers was an effort years in the making — a vision co-created by students, faculty, legislators and a whole community of donors who believe in the power of the arts at PSU.
Lead donor Jordan Schnitzer, for whom the school is named, is a successful real estate developer, an internationally recognized art collector, and a longstanding supporter of PSU. Schnitzer and his late parents’ total philanthropic commitment to PSU tops $26 million, making them PSU’s most generous benefactor family overall.
“I hope students will be inspired by this new facility to explore new ideas, collaborate with one another and create things they never thought possible,” Schnitzer said. “While someone can learn by reading in candlelight, walking into this amazing, naturally lit facility cannot help but raise one’s spirits and enrich one’s heart and soul! The high ceilings, large classrooms, decks, and common areas honor the students, honor the professors and teachers, and honor the tradition of learning!”
“On behalf of my late parents, Harold and Arlene Schnitzer, and our family foundations, we are honored and humbled to be part of this program and this new building, which will go on to touch the lives of hundreds of thousands of students for years to come!”
INVITATION TO INNOVATE
Ainsley Van Hook, B.S. ʼ23, is also an incoming Launch resident. Having earned her MFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art earlier this year, Van Hook wants to use her residency to continue her exploration of textiles.
Van Hook describes herself as “addicted to being a student” and keen on experimenting with new ways of creating. “The building feels a lot more designed for a natural progression of artistic exploration,” she says, “which, for me, is the whole point of going to art school.”
Throughout the building, students are invited to explore many different ways of making and working — from centuries-old techniques to cutting edge technologies.
Emily Fitzgerald, assistant professor of art practice with a focus in photography, says many students are eager to learn traditional photographic practices.
“Being in a darkroom and using analog processes — you can’t have white light, or a cell phone in there,” Fitzgerald says. “I see a lot of students gravitate toward that. There’s this understanding that being forced to slow down and do something that doesn't require a screen supports new ways of seeing and approaching things, like light, composition and color.”
Slowing down and looking at art from a new perspective are also hallmarks of lithography. For Kat Richards, assistant professor of art practice in print making, it’s one of the reasons they are excited to introduce students to this complex printing method.
Though the practice dates back to the end of the 18th century, lithography is new to the PSU arts building. The new setup includes a press, a sink used in the processes of treating the print surface, a lithography stone and several other materials that can be used as the drawing surface — all things the previous building did not have space to house
When students enter the program, most of them are only familiar with digital methods of printmaking, Richards says. Yet older processes — whether it’s lithography in printmaking or developing film in photography — embody the fundamentals of their artform.
“I think it's important to keep different kinds of printmaking alive,” Richards says. Bringing together traditional printing methods alongside the digital “really opens up a whole different set of techniques and ways to make art.”
On every floor of the new arts building, students are encouraged to think expansively about their practice. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the building’s second-floor Catalyst Lab — part scientific research facility, part engineering laboratory, part artistic playground. In this visionary space, funded by The Robert & Mercedes Eicholz Foundation Here, students can experiment with turning foraged plants into bio-plastics , use soldering stations to tinker with metalwork and robotics, and try on virtual and augmented reality headsets to look at design in different dimensions.
This building gives us a much better front door for continuing to build relationships with the art and design community.
While these technologies may be more closely associated with commercial uses, artists see their potential through a different lens.
“This is a playful discovery space,” Sarah Alvarez, incoming James DePriest Visiting Professor, says. “We’re not doing this for industrial applications.”
Students are also pushing the boundaries of what is needed to make art. For example, mycelium blocks could be used to build sculptures or a vase, or make the cover of a book. Bacteria growth could be used for pigments.
“Really interesting things can happen when we expand the conversation about materials,” says Alvarez, whose expertise lies in graphic design, sculpture and new media. “You could go out and buy foam, or paints, or other materials. Or, you could embrace the friction of developing your own materials and make your own.”
Bingaman-Burt believes access to all of these technologies will lead to more well-rounded artists who are prepared to take on the challenges of a changing industry.
“The more folks have a 360-degree understanding of how their art can be made, the more nimble and flexible they’ll be to navigate the whiplash of new and emerging technologies,” Bingaman-Burt says. “It’s very inspiring and exciting to have students who want to learn old ways and have access to new ways as well. I believe that combination is how we move forward.”
CONNECT AND COLLABORATE
Just as students are invited to synthesize various disciplines and practices in their work, the new building will provide students, faculty and even the public the necessary spaces to connect and collaborate. Going to visit a colleague in another studio, and running into each other in the halls, are features of the new space.
“One of the most powerful things about art is the inherent playfulness,” Alvarez says. “This building caters to that need to explore and ideate past the boundaries of your creative discipline.”
Bingaman-Burt and colleagues are also looking beyond students and faculty to consider potential collaborations across Portland
“One thing the art school has done so well is develop wonderful relationships with people and venues in the city,” Bingaman-Burt says. “One thing we’ve done poorly is open up our own spaces, because we haven't had a space to make that happen.”
The new building, however, is well positioned to become a cultural hub within the city. The spacious studios allow for public-facing workshops. There is a designated lecture hall for large talks, and a swanky gallery space for exhibitions of student and local art. As part of the Launch program, residents will develop community engagement events and exhibit their work in the building. This December, the Graphic Design program will host Good Market, a large holiday art fair where students will show and sell their work.
Inviting the city of Portland into the Jordan Schnitzer School community is exhilarating for faculty and students alike. “This building gives us a much better front door for continuing to build relationships with the art and design community,” Bingaman-Burt says.
In a time when art institutions across the city and the country are struggling and even closing, the new Art Building can provide a new gathering place for the Portland arts scene.
“Seeing a public university like PSU open a huge art building — it gives me a lot of hope,” Ainsley Van Hook says. “The university is showing that this is worthy of investment. Students want to do art, and if you give them access to these resources, they will come out more successful than ever.”