Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center
Encyclopedia
The Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center is a multi-use arts
and performance venue
in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon
, United States. Opened in 2004, it is housed in a red-colored stone building completed in 1949 as a Lutheran church
. Hillsboro, a city on the west side of Portland
, owns the three-level facility and operates it through their Parks and Recreation Department.
Walters Cultural Arts Center includes gallery
space, classroom space, and a 200 seat performance hall. With two above ground floors and one below ground level, the center has a total of 15664 ft2 of space. Located on East Main Street, the Washington County Courthouse
and the Hillsboro Civic Center
are just to the west and the Edward Schulmerich House
one block to the east on Main. The center is named in honor of a local couple who donated $1 million towards the project which included purchasing the property and USD$2.4 million worth of renovations.
A Camas, Washington
, rock quarry offered the church an unlimited amount of red colored rock for $1,000 as a long as the church transported the rock back to Hillsboro. Construction began in 1947 and the new church was completed in 1949. By the late 1990s Trinity Lutheran had again outgrown their church and began building a new campus in the southeast part of the city.
The church did not want to sell its former home to just anyone, or for it to be torn down. At this time the city was looking for a space to use as an arts center. Plans for an arts and culture center
in Hillsboro were made in the city’s Hillsboro 2020 Vision. This community plan was finalized in 2000 and designed to improve the livability of the city located in the Portland metropolitan area
. Hillsboro purchased the property from the church for $1.325 million in November 2000.
Most of the purchase price came from a $1 million donation by Glenn and Viola Walters to the city to help pay for an arts center in 1999. The Walters had earned their money from operating a nursery in the surrounding community. The city had hoped to open a remodeled arts center during the winter of 2001, but this was delayed with later estimates having the center opening in late 2002. In December 2002, construction began on the work to transform the church into a culture and arts center. WaterLeaf Architecture & Interiors designed the changes to the building that sits on a 54648 ft2 lot.
Renovations included adding a new roof, creating a new entrance, adding an elevator, among other changes. Creating a new entrance involved removing hand quarried stone from the walls to enlarge a window opening. The remodeling also brought the building up to modern seismic codes and to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). City officials hoped to maintain the character of the original structure despite changes and upgrades. The total cost for renovations as of opening were $2.4 million, with the city paying for 60% of those costs. Some financing for the center came from selling bricks to the public that were then used on exterior spaces.
On March 16, 2004, the Glen & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center opened. Total cost for the project including buying the property was around $3.5 million. The center’s operating budget comes from city funds and user generated fees. A new classical music
concert series was started at the center in 2009, as was a book club focusing on arts and culture titles. In April 2010, the Oregon Mandolin Orchestra held their first ever concert at the center.
, contractors removed the chimney during conversion to the center and inserted an elevator to comply with ADA requirements.
The T-shaped center has three levels, which includes a basement
that houses classrooms used for art instruction. Instruction includes courses on creating pottery, sculptures, and ceramics. The second story contains exhibition gallery space and multipurpose rooms, with the focus on visual arts. On the main level is the 2000 square feet (185.8 m²) auditorium where the church’s sanctuary was located. The auditorium seats up to 200 people and is used for concerts, lectures, plays, and other events.
On the outside is a garden, and a lawn area to the east with a small stage that is used for fair weather events such as summer concerts. Also outside the building is a new wheelchair ramp
that was added to the east side where a new entrance was added. There are two terraces on the exterior of the building and the inside also has a kitchen area.
, to increased downtown development. The center is the city’s first dedicated arts facility. City officials hoped to create a magnet for artists and aficionados in the downtown area with the center and other developments that include a renovated Venetian Theatre
. The goal was to have the center encourage art studios to open and for art related festivals to develop to attract people to downtown after most businesses closed. Traditionally, shops and businesses closed by 6:00 p.m. as workers in the county seat left for the day. The center also is rented out to groups for private functions.
Performances at the Walters Cultural Arts Center include opera, folk music, country music, and spoken word acts. These include poetry readings and lectures. Art exhibits have included "Organic," "Questioning Functionality," and "Questioning Functionality 2 (QF2)" among others. These shows have included art forms such as interior design, crafts, sculpture, and fine art.
Art Center
Art Center may refer to:*Arts centre, a type of community centre that focuses on the arts*Art Center College of Design, a college in Pasadena, California...
and performance venue
Performing arts center
Performing arts center, often abbreviated PAC, is used to refer to* A multi-use performance space that is intended for use by various types of the performing arts, including dance, music and theatre....
in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...
, United States. Opened in 2004, it is housed in a red-colored stone building completed in 1949 as a Lutheran church
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
. Hillsboro, a city on the west side of Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, owns the three-level facility and operates it through their Parks and Recreation Department.
Walters Cultural Arts Center includes gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
space, classroom space, and a 200 seat performance hall. With two above ground floors and one below ground level, the center has a total of 15664 ft2 of space. Located on East Main Street, the Washington County Courthouse
Washington County Courthouse (Oregon)
The Washington County Courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon is the courthouse for Washington County, Oregon, in the United States. Washington County was established in 1843 and the first government building was finished in 1852. The current courthouse was built in 1928 with an addition and renovations to...
and the Hillsboro Civic Center
Hillsboro Civic Center
The Hillsboro Civic Center is a government-built, mixed-use development in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The development includes the city hall for the county seat of Washington County, located west of Portland, Oregon. Covering , the Civic Center has a total of over in the complex...
are just to the west and the Edward Schulmerich House
Edward Schulmerich House
The Edward Schulmerich House is a two-story private residence on East Main Street in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Completed in 1915, the American Craftsman Bungalow style structure was constructed for state senator Edward Schulmerich and added to the National Register of Historic...
one block to the east on Main. The center is named in honor of a local couple who donated $1 million towards the project which included purchasing the property and USD$2.4 million worth of renovations.
History
The Trinity Lutheran Church congregation was founded in 1917 and acquired their first church in 1923. By the 1940s the congregation needed a larger place to worship and bought a lot on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Main Street in downtown Hillsboro in 1941.A Camas, Washington
Camas, Washington
Camas is a city in Clark County, Washington, with a population of 19,355 at the 2010 census. Officially incorporated on June 18, 1906, the city is named after the camas lily, a plant with an onion-like bulb prized by Native Americans. At the west end of downtown Camas is a large Georgia-Pacific...
, rock quarry offered the church an unlimited amount of red colored rock for $1,000 as a long as the church transported the rock back to Hillsboro. Construction began in 1947 and the new church was completed in 1949. By the late 1990s Trinity Lutheran had again outgrown their church and began building a new campus in the southeast part of the city.
The church did not want to sell its former home to just anyone, or for it to be torn down. At this time the city was looking for a space to use as an arts center. Plans for an arts and culture center
Community art
Community Art could be loosely defined as a way of creating art in which professional artists collaborate more or less intensively with people who don't normally actively engage in the arts. Community arts, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based art,"...
in Hillsboro were made in the city’s Hillsboro 2020 Vision. This community plan was finalized in 2000 and designed to improve the livability of the city located in the Portland metropolitan area
Portland metropolitan area
The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area , also known as the Portland metropolitan area or Greater Portland, is an urban area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered around the city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S...
. Hillsboro purchased the property from the church for $1.325 million in November 2000.
Most of the purchase price came from a $1 million donation by Glenn and Viola Walters to the city to help pay for an arts center in 1999. The Walters had earned their money from operating a nursery in the surrounding community. The city had hoped to open a remodeled arts center during the winter of 2001, but this was delayed with later estimates having the center opening in late 2002. In December 2002, construction began on the work to transform the church into a culture and arts center. WaterLeaf Architecture & Interiors designed the changes to the building that sits on a 54648 ft2 lot.
Renovations included adding a new roof, creating a new entrance, adding an elevator, among other changes. Creating a new entrance involved removing hand quarried stone from the walls to enlarge a window opening. The remodeling also brought the building up to modern seismic codes and to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). City officials hoped to maintain the character of the original structure despite changes and upgrades. The total cost for renovations as of opening were $2.4 million, with the city paying for 60% of those costs. Some financing for the center came from selling bricks to the public that were then used on exterior spaces.
On March 16, 2004, the Glen & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center opened. Total cost for the project including buying the property was around $3.5 million. The center’s operating budget comes from city funds and user generated fees. A new classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
concert series was started at the center in 2009, as was a book club focusing on arts and culture titles. In April 2010, the Oregon Mandolin Orchestra held their first ever concert at the center.
Building
Located on Main Street at Fifth Avenue in downtown Hillsboro, the center is two blocks from the Hillsboro Central/3rd Avenue Transit Center MAX light rail station. The building covers 15664 ft2 of space and contains five classrooms, a lobby, meeting rooms, a box office, exhibition gallery, and an auditorium. The main part of the building has rock walls, and the auditorium contains high, arched ceilings and stained-glass windows. Once featuring a stone chimneyChimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
, contractors removed the chimney during conversion to the center and inserted an elevator to comply with ADA requirements.
The T-shaped center has three levels, which includes a basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
that houses classrooms used for art instruction. Instruction includes courses on creating pottery, sculptures, and ceramics. The second story contains exhibition gallery space and multipurpose rooms, with the focus on visual arts. On the main level is the 2000 square feet (185.8 m²) auditorium where the church’s sanctuary was located. The auditorium seats up to 200 people and is used for concerts, lectures, plays, and other events.
On the outside is a garden, and a lawn area to the east with a small stage that is used for fair weather events such as summer concerts. Also outside the building is a new wheelchair ramp
Wheelchair ramp
A wheelchair ramp is an inclined plane installed in addition to or instead of stairs. Ramps permit wheelchair users, as well as people pushing strollers, carts, or other wheeled objects, to more easily access a building....
that was added to the east side where a new entrance was added. There are two terraces on the exterior of the building and the inside also has a kitchen area.
Operations
Walters Cultural Arts Center was designed to be a bookend, along with the Hillsboro Civic CenterHillsboro Civic Center
The Hillsboro Civic Center is a government-built, mixed-use development in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The development includes the city hall for the county seat of Washington County, located west of Portland, Oregon. Covering , the Civic Center has a total of over in the complex...
, to increased downtown development. The center is the city’s first dedicated arts facility. City officials hoped to create a magnet for artists and aficionados in the downtown area with the center and other developments that include a renovated Venetian Theatre
Venetian Theatre
The Venetian Theatre is a movie theater, performing arts venue, and restaurant in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Formerly the Town Theater, the building re-opened in 2008 after more than a decade of inactivity and revitalization plans...
. The goal was to have the center encourage art studios to open and for art related festivals to develop to attract people to downtown after most businesses closed. Traditionally, shops and businesses closed by 6:00 p.m. as workers in the county seat left for the day. The center also is rented out to groups for private functions.
Performances at the Walters Cultural Arts Center include opera, folk music, country music, and spoken word acts. These include poetry readings and lectures. Art exhibits have included "Organic," "Questioning Functionality," and "Questioning Functionality 2 (QF2)" among others. These shows have included art forms such as interior design, crafts, sculpture, and fine art.
External links
- Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center – City of Hillsboro
- Uncle Earl Live at Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center – Internet Archives
- Hillsboro to open cultural center - Portland Business Journal