Housed in the landmark 1925 Rouse Building Department Store along downtown Riverside’s Mission Inn Historic District, the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts is the second facility in UCR’s plan for the Arts Block in Riverside. This downtown location affords exposure and outreach to the local and regional communities and also serves visiting artists and scholars, graduate level student and arts faculty instruction and research in the arts. The Center also connects with the first facility of the Arts Block – the UCR California Museum of Photography.

The architectural framework of the project begins with the reinterpretation of the original 1925 storefront. The current design realigns the entry to be on axis with the existing two-story colonnaded interior topped by an expansive lay-light 40 feet above. The ground level storefront is redesigned to provide two glass and steel display vitrines in recognition of corresponding historic precedence, a wide set of pocketed sliding doors for indoor/outdoor performance flow, and a corner café/ store with a canopy that extends well into the public plaza.

On the ground level, the facility is connected through to the adjacent California Museum of Photography, facilitating the flow for visitors of the Arts Block, and allowing for potential cross-programming between the two facilities. The iconic two storey central volume is cleared of non-contributing architectural elements and refurbished to serve as a large Performance and Exhibition space. Together with the flanking Sweeney Art Gallery and the 100 seat screening room, the ground level of the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts can accommodate multi-media art exhibitions, music and dance performance, lectures, symposia, film festivals as well as conference and banquet events.

On the second level, two dance studios, an interdisciplinary digital media lab, a video capture and editing studio, faculty offices and conference rooms and communal spaces rimmed the historic atrium.

At the basement level, the Center is again connected through to the California Museum of Photography. This provides staff and researchers access to the world renowned Keystone-Mast Collection of stereoscopic photography housed in a state-of-the-art mechanically controlled research facility. Exhibition preparation, collections and other staff-access only areas are also housed at this level.

Recognizing that artists play a crucial role in society, the Center will have an innovative program of lectures, symposia, community forums and dialogues with artists, filmmakers, playwrights, dancers and musicians. Here you will encounter arts and artists from around the world and from Southern California. This unique adaptive reuse combination of facilities and interdisciplinary programming enlivens Riverside’s downtown core, bridges the community and the university, and marries history and 21st century digital technology.