CLS: Architecture Around Us

Explore various architectural styles in our community and their influence on how we work, live and play.

Andrew Klemmer

Monday, July 24, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

The Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art is a hyperrational response to the needs of the Museum. Toledo Museum of Art wanted to better honor the Libbey glass collection and combine glass exhibitions with their active studio glass program. Process and product under one roof and visible to each other. Rather than being “modern architecture” or some other stylistic statement, the building is simply stripped of pre-conventions.

Andrew Klemmer founded Paratus Group in 1997 to provide focused consulting for cultural projects involving complex programs, exceptional design, intricate construction and highly creative global teams. With over thirty years of experience, Klemmer plays a key leadership role in each project undertaken by Paratus Group.

Paratus grew out of a project that began in 1991, when Klemmer was chosen to oversee the expansion of the landmarked Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Manhattan’s Museum Mile. Subsequently, he was asked to play a key role directing the planning and programming of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. He founded Paratus Group in order to provide these services to other cultural institutions. Paratus is unique in the field in that they take a leadership role in programming, planning and budgeting new institutions and they follow through by overseeing all of the design and construction.

Paratus provided Project Direction services for the completed Morgan Library expansion with Renzo Piano, the Toledo Glass Pavilion with SANAA, the McNay Art Museum expansion with Jean Paul Viguier, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum expansion with Renzo Piano, the Perez Art Museum with Herzog de Mueron, the Kimbell Art Museum with Renzo Piano, and most recently Grace Farms with SANAA. Paratus also restored the Guggenheim Museum in 2008. Currently, they are consulting with The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw on a Tom Phifer Building, expanding the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, building the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles.

Klemmer is actively engaged in the architecture community, serving as a guest critic at Yale University School of Architecture and as a speaker at industry events, as well as on advisory panels for civic projects, such as the new Tappan Zee Bridge. He holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and environmental studies from Bowdoin College.

Sara Hines

“Cottage Communities & the Camp Meeting Movement”
Tuesday, July 25, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

History and understanding of the camp meeting movement and where it is today. An overview, including examples from over 100 sites that Hines has visited and documented.

“Building, Updating & Preserving Cottages”
Wednesday, July 26, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

Architecture, history, renovation, ideas as well as response to problems of finance, governance and viability of Camp Meetings going forward.

Sara Hines is a registered architect with over 45 years’ experience in all types of architecture as well as an urban designer. Her fascination with camp meetings happened when she experienced the Martha’s Vineyard camp meeting and how the very design of the houses and layout of the system of streets and squares created community simply by design. When she found out there were other camp meeting sites in the area, she began to explore, record and understand this unique American phenomenon.

Hines is the author of Cottage Communities, a study of the American camp meeting movement, which looks at this historic form as a generator of urban design that creates community through design as well as organization. These places are an early example of land trusts, tiny houses and affordable density. She has currently visited and recorded about 100 of these places.

Hines is also an avid researcher on zero net energy housing and has been a certified Home Energy Rating System Rater (HERS) rater. She has worked on manufactured housing designs and urban layouts for solutions like mobile home parks and land trusts as a source of affordability. She looks for ways to integrate good quality of life and affordability through land trust and trailer park design, as these remain a market-rate solution to affordability.

In addition, she is a teacher, photographer and illustrator. She has worked with computer generated maker solutions to recovering complex detailing traditions in affordable form. She also has worked as a potter, painter and jewelry maker. She is based in Ashland, Massachusetts.

M.J. Albacete

“All the Different Ways of Building”
Thursday, July 27, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

Why do buildings stand up?  Why do they collapse?  Recent catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey reveal critical flaws in construction.  While teaching classes on the history of architecture at Kent State University Stark Campus, M. J. Albacete soon realized that projected images of major innovations in construction were not easily understood by his students.  So, he created a series of actual workable models which he assembles in class (often with the student assistance).  These models include Post and Lintel, the Arch, Barrel Vault, Groin Vault, Rib Vault, Dome and pendentives, trusses, steel girders, cantilever, suspension, etc., culminating in several amusing demonstrations involving audience participation.

M. J. Albacete’s career in the arts spans four decades at the Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio, retiring as Executive Director Emeritus in 2014.  His parallel career as Adjunct Professor at Kent State University Stark Campus at first teaching Art History and currently the History of Architecture, continues to this day.  His travels in the US and abroad have resulted in many illustrated lectures embracing the history of art and architecture.  He has annually presented pre-concert lectures for the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and for the 2023-24 season will introduce all seven concerts, plus four educational programs on music appreciation. His recent activities include “hands-on” projects in area schools building large-scale cardboard constructions combining art and geometry.

Michelle Arnold Paine

“Foundations of Faith & Buildings of Beauty”
Friday, July 28, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

Church buildings do more than simply provide a space for people to gather on Sunday mornings. Over the centuries, elements of church architecture have been used to teach about the Christian faith as well as to inspire awe and worship of God. This lecture will discuss some of Europe’s most spectacular churches, as well as highlight photos of your favorites sent in advance. From baptisteries to church portals to stained glass windows we will travel through time and across continents to see how architecture of churches expresses the tenets of Christianity.

“Building Inspiration”
Saturday, July 29, 10:30 a.m. | Orchestra Hall

Artist Michelle Arnold Paine’s paintings, drawings and prints are inspired by the several years she spent in Italy. The works of Italian art, architecture, literature and Catholic faith which she found triggered a spiritual conversion as well as many years of work in the painting studio. In this presentation she will share her painting series of impressions of church architecture, as well as her figurative paintings of contemporary women, inspired by moments in the life of the Virgin Mary. Both of these series of artworks seek to integrate traditional and contemporary in their visual elements.

While living and working for a study abroad program in Italy for three years, Michelle Arnold Paine became fascinated by the shapes and forms of medieval architecture and art which are the context of daily life. In Italy she found her vocation as an artist and a connection to history and tradition. She studied at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before earning a M.F.A. from University of New Hampshire. She taught art for seven years at colleges in New England before relocating to the Toledo area. Her art has been published in many art and faith publications. In addition to numerous private collections across the U.S., her paintings can be found in the collection of the Valparaiso University Chapel, Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire and Gordon College.