In the heart of the American south, more than 15,000 students at Georgia’s Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) stroll through more than 100 rehabilitated historic buildings every day. And, beyond Savannah’s charming squares set amid historic architecture, the university also has reclaimed buildings and interiors in Atlanta, as well as in Hong Kong and Lacoste, France. As SCAD founder and president Paula Wallace puts it, “SCAD comprises a menagerie of extraordinary historic buildings.”
These international historic sites have been thoroughly documented in a new book that highlights the university’s history through the lens of its rich built environment in SCAD: The Architecture of a University. The book, published by Assouline, is a luxurious montage of more than 200 color and archival photographs spread across 360 pages. Wanting to share the school’s built history with architecture and preservation aficionados across the globe (as well as with prospective students), the book attempts to create, as Wallace says, “a sumptuous visual experience…that invites readers to tumble headlong into each spread.” It’s intended, she says, to serve as an “invitation.”
SCAD has been honored for its conservation efforts by organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Institute of Architects, and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art. Detailing the importance of historic preservation, SCAD: The Architecture of a University celebrates the university’s reuse and revitalization of historic buildings, and serves as a visual guide for reframing historic buildings for contemporary uses and needs—a purpose that extends well beyond the interests of a single institution. From Poetter Hall, an 18th-century fortress-like building that was home of the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory, to a former Hong Kong courthouse built by the British Government in 1960, the book offers a retrospective history spanning four decades with detailed narratives of 40 of the university’s architectural jewels located across its four global locations.
