Design at its best Design at its best (April 23, 2004)

New home for music and art school gains international attention

By Grace Rauh

From San Antonio Road, the Community School of Music and Arts looks otherworldly.

Its sharply angled roof, thick concrete walls and expansive glass windows all contribute to the school's pared down, Zen-like aura. Even when the building is teeming with young children clutching music scores, flutes and violins -- and racing to their music and painting lessons -- the space retains its modern, simple beauty.

The building, designed by San Francisco architect Mark Cavagnero, officially opened as CSMA's first permanent home in January. Since then, it has been turning heads on busy San Antonio Road and gaining praise from musicians and architects.

Jazz artist David Benoit played at the school's opening night festivities and halted his concert midway to praise the performance hall's exquisite acoustics and design. The American Institute of Architects' San Francisco chapter recently honored Cavagnero with a 2004 Design award, and two European architecture magazines are clamoring for photographs of the school for a potential spread.

But despite all the fanfare, Cavagnero believes the building's real beauty comes from the art and music created within its walls, courtyards and concert hall.

"The building is a vessel," he said.

A stroll through the school's grounds only confirms the architect's sentiments. Art and music are present everywhere. Small practice studios are tucked away, one next to the other, off a gray concrete hallway adorned with colorful artwork. Piano notes seep out from under a closed door, and in the small glassed-in waiting room, a man strums a guitar.

Tall windows in the art rooms throw light on low tables covered with brightly colored paper, and the paint smudges and streaks on top hint at the projects students have already crafted in the space.

"I think it's inspiring for them to have a facility like this," said the school's executive director Angela McConnell.

The studios and practice rooms may anchor the school's daily activities, but the new building's grand centerpiece is undoubtedly Tateuchi Hall, the concert auditorium just off the main lobby.

To step onto the simple wooden stage as a young performer could be a daunting prospect, but a necessary one, said Evy Schiffman, the school's communications director. The school never had a concert hall at any of its previous homes, but now students will fill the space with their own music and file in as audience members when faculty and visiting artists perform.

"We are building tomorrow's audiences," Schiffman said.

Pale wood panels partially cover the concrete walls on both sides of the 200-plus seats and layers of wood hang from the ceiling, creating a wave that ends on the stage. The auditorium is designed to amplify music from the stage. Cavagnero teamed up with a sound engineer who worked on Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to accomplish the task. Along the rear and front of the theater, narrow wood pieces are stacked to resemble a solid screen.

"The materials are without color. The idea is they are the backdrop; they are the canvas for students' art," Schiffman said.

The community school offers music and art classes to students from across the Bay Area and provides nearly all the art education programs for public schools in Mountain View, Los Altos, Woodside, Santa Clara and Palo Alto. The school has hopped from one temporary home to the next throughout its 35-year history but signed a 50-year lease with the city to stay on its new property. The new building is nestled beside the busy intersection where San Antonio Road meets Central Expressway.

"The first thing they needed was to feel permanent, which is difficult on the site. To be honest, it is a transient site," Cavagnero said. "So to give it a feeling of permanence meant it had to be very strong on its own."

He wants students to enter the front courtyard, look up at the glass lobby and say to themselves: "This is different. This is quite beautiful."

E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@mv-voice.com

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