Welcome to BAM/PFA’s Building Project News Center, where you can explore Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design for our new building in downtown Berkeley.
Forward-looking and versatile, the new BAM/PFA will be a dynamic and engaging place to experience our diverse art, film, performance, and education programs, and to access our extensive collection and archives. This project will integrate a repurposed building—the former UC Berkeley printing plant, at the corner of Oxford and Center Streets—with a dramatic new structure. Located in Berkeley’s downtown arts district, the new BAM/PFA will be a block from the Downtown Berkeley BART station, making it easily accessible to audiences from throughout the region.
We look forward to bringing you a new facility that provides expanded artistic, educational, and civic opportunities for Berkeley, the Bay Area, and the global community.
Lawrence Rinder
Work has begun on new BAM/PFA building
BAM/PFA Capital Campaign passes $85 million mark—$15 million left to go!
UC Regents approve new building design and funding plan
Schematic design for the new BAM/PFA announced
Charles Renfro presents the new building design at a Community Open House
Design team commences design development phase
BAM/PFA selects Diller Scofidio + Renfro as design firm for new building
Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a transdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. Based in New York, DS+R is led by three partners—Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro—who collaborate with a staff of seventy-five architects, designers, artists, and administrators.
In 1999, the MacArthur Foundation presented Ms. Diller and Mr. Scofidio with the ‘genius’ award for their commitment to integrating architecture with issues of contemporary culture. They were recently made fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects and were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Science. Other prestigious awards and honors received by DS+R include: the National Design Award from the Smithsonian, the Brunner Prize from the American Academy of the Arts and Letters, an Obie for an off-Broadway theater production, the AIA President’s Award, and the AIA Medal of Honor. In 2003, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of the studio’s work, recognizing the firm’s unorthodox practice.
DS+R’s projects include the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts redevelopment project, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the High Line in New York, the Creative Arts Center at Brown University, the Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro, the Blur Building in Switzerland, the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum “Bubble” in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Diller is professor of architecture at Princeton University. Mr. Scofidio is professor emeritus of architecture at Cooper Union. Mr. Renfro has served as visiting professor at Rice and Columbia Universities, among others.
BAM/PFA's new building will be located at Oxford Street, between Center and Addison Streets in downtown Berkeley. The new facility will anchor Berkeley’s Arts District, where BAM/PFA will count as its neighbors the Berkeley Repertory Theater, Aurora Theater, Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, the Bancroft Library’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, and the David Brower Center.
Just a block from the Downtown Berkeley BART station and across from the west entrance to the UC Berkeley campus, the new building will be a linchpin between the University and the community. The Center and Oxford Street intersection, traversed by more than 10,000 people each day, is one of the most active pedestrian corridors in Berkeley. Currently occupying a portion of the site is an Art Deco-style former printing plant that will be repurposed and integrated with an approximately 30,000-square-foot new structure. The new BAM/PFA will be approximately 82,000 square feet.
