As a facility for teaching, research, and creation, the Traina Center for the Arts benefits the hundreds of students – about half of the undergraduate student body each semester – who take courses in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. As a site for public concerts, films, and other programs, the Center is a cultural resource for the campus, the neighborhood, and the city.
The University’s thriving arts programs make creative use of this historic building and neighborhood landmark. In May 2001, the University broke ground on the project, which encompassed the renovation of a 19th-century Romanesque Revival building – the former Downing Street School – and construction of the attached Jennie and Anthony Razzo Hall.
With the opening of the Traina Center, the University significantly improved and expanded its arts facilities with more centralized, better-equipped spaces for study, creation, performance, and presentation of work. The original Downing Street School space now features an arts library and resource center; studios for design, painting, drawing, and printmaking; darkrooms for photography; a gallery for exhibition of professional and student work; seminar rooms; high-tech classrooms; and a multimedia arts center. Razzo Hall is used regularly for recitals, screenings, lectures, and other programs.
The Traina Center consists of:
- The Jacob and Alida Hoven Schiltkamp Gallery is Clark University’s main gallery space hosting 4 professional exhibits annually along with the annual Senior Thesis Show, highlighting the graduating seniors from the Studio Art Program.
- Jennie and Anthony Razzo Hall is a 194-seat recital hall/movie theater that is home to most music performances (both professional and student concerts), movie screenings, lectures and is used as V&PA’s largest classroom.
- The Herbert and Nannette Rothschild Family Painting and Drawing Studio
- The Henry J. Leir Seminar Room
- The Melville Lobby – an auxiliary student lounge, is the lobby to Razzo Hall and plays host to many receptions
- Student lounge – equipped with wireless web access and much comfortable seating
- Dark Room – the main dark room for students of photography
- Media Arts Study Hub – houses the department’s collection of films, videos, DVDs, CDs, cassettes, records, and slides