Le Corbusier Will Prepare Design For College's Visual Arts Center

Le Corbusier, noted French modern architect, will design the new $1.2 million Visual Arts Center for the College. The Center, scheduled to occupy the present site of Farlow House, will be Le Corbusier's first building constructed in this country.

The controversial 72-year-old architect made a flying trip to Cambridge this weekend to view the site and confer with Dean Bundy and the Committee on the Practice of the Visual Arts, headed by Jose Luis Sert, Dean of the Graduate School of Design.

Although final details will be left to the discretion of the architect, the center, located on Quincy St., between Fogg Art Museum and the Faculty Club, is expected to be three stories high.

Workshops Stress Flexibility

The purpose of the new building is to provide facilities for students working in the visual arts: drawing, painting, sculpture, and other types of shopwork. The large portion of the building which will be devoted to highly flexible workshop and studio space reflects the Administration's desire to emphasize students' actual contact with materials.

Included in the College's preliminary program for the building is a large area of both student and professional work. Space will also be left for work in special media such as photography, typography, ceramics, television, and other means of visual communication. In addition, the Center will provide rooms for lectures and seminars and for studios for the artist-directors and special visitors.

CPVA to Supervise

All activities of the interdepartmental center will be under the supervision of the Faculty Committee on the Practice of the Visual Arts. The Committee will also determine what courses may be given in the Center. These are expected to include both departmental courses approved by the CPVA and study programs offered by the Committee itself.

Among the courses presently given which will be continued in the new building are the architectural sciences course now given in the Design Workshop, where students experiment with form, texture, and color under the direction of the sculptor, Mirko Basaldella.

The building was made possible by a gift to the Program of $1.5 million from Mr. and Mrs. Alfred St. Vrain Carpenter.