A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on March 22 to celebrate the opening of the University of Windsor’s new School of Creative Arts (SoCA) buildings, located on downtown Windsor’s Freedom Way. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, UWindsor’s president and vice-chancellor, Alan Wildeman, announced that the Armouries main lobby will be named Veterans Hall to honour the building’s military heritage.
The new buildings, located between Park St. and University Ave., saw the conversion of the historic 46,000-square-foot former Armouries Building into a 66,000-square-foot arts hub, designed by CS&P Architects’ Craig Goodman and his team. The adjacent Freedom Way building, constructed on the site of a former restaurant, provides an extra 20,000 square feet of creative space.
Goodman and his team was tasked with transforming the Armouries building, built in the late 19th century Romanesque style, into light, lofty spaces meant to foster creativity. The architect says every square inch of the space was carefully considered, to pay homage to the building’s historic past, including repointing nearly all the original bricks. One hundred years of paint was removed from the bricks lining the Armouries’ interior walls, while 12,000 bricks from the addition built in 1935 were dismantled, cleaned and re-installed in the new recital hall.
New windows were custom-built to match the original look of the building, and the oak doors at both entrances, while too large and heavy for everyday use, were restored and have been repurposed to remain permanently open within the building, while the entrance openings were enclosed with glass vestibules.
“The Armouries building will now serve an entirely new generation and has been joined by the Freedom Way building as spaces where academic creativity is nurtured and developed with an eye to the future,” said Dr. Wildeman, in a press release. “We know that creative arts are an essential part of a community’s well-being. The new teaching and creative work spaces, and the synergy that is being created by more closely connecting our students, faculty and staff with community musicians and artists, will benefit our region for generations to come.
The Armouries Building features 12 practice rooms for musicians, a performance and practice hall, a library, classrooms, offices, a keyboard and computer lab, photography and painting studios, and the Visual Arts and the Built Environment (VABE) studio. The Freedom Way facility features film production studios, editing suites, a sonic art studio and making studio for sculpture, metal and woodworking. Currently, the SoCA buildings are home to approximately 500 students.
