Walter Paepcke never sat down in Paepcke Auditorium to listen to a stimulating lecture or watch a classic movie. Paepcke, founder of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, died at age 64 in 1960. The auditorium was built in 1961.
But every cinder block of the building is still infused with Walter Paepcke’s idea of what Aspen, and the Aspen Institute, could afford people, including “the contemplation of the noblest works of man — in the creation of beauty and in the attainment of truth,” as the Institute’s “First Annual Report, In Memory of Walter Paepcke,” put it in 1961.
“The permanent auditorium is an idea Walter Paepcke himself had enthusiastically endorsed before he became ill and now the trustees have commissioned the building in his memory,” the report also said.
There was a line item in the annual report for the auditorium’s construction — $92,496 — although it’s not clear if that was the total cost.
When the 48-year-old building is closed for 10 months beginning Aug. 17 for a $12.3 million dollar renovation, project manager Jim Curtis and Aspen Institute Executive Vice President of Operations Amy Margerum will be working to create a “fresher” building while still respecting its original design and construction.
“The trick here was to deal with the logistical, mechanical and energy issues, and give it a ‘wow factor,’ but also make it so when people walk in they will say it was delicately handled,” Curtis said.
The renovation plan was developed by Farewell Mills Gatsch Architects of Princeton, New Jersey. They are same firm working on the proposed addition to the Wheeler Opera House and they specialize in historical and cultural buildings and theaters. The construction work is being done by Shaw Construction, which has built or renovated all the buildings on the Institute-Aspen Music Festival campus since the early 1990s.
The Institute’s buildings were once described as “functional, minimal structures of simple geometric volumes.” And so it is with Paepcke Auditorium, with its blue walls and white roof, designed by Paepcke’s design guru Herbert Bayer and his brother-in-law, Aspen architect Fritz Benedict.
But there is much to fix in the old 18,500-square-foot building, which has been upstaged by the shiny new Doerr-Hosier Center across the campus.
“It is literally crumbling,” said Margerum on Friday, as a thunderstorm swept across the Institute campus, causing the lights to flicker in her office. “We’ve got leaks. We’ve got electrical problems, we’ve got plumbing problems. We’ve have drainage problems.”
The current structure is not energy efficient and a new geothermal pond is in place next to the building to help with heating and cooling, along with a new air conditioning system. And the building is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Right now, our lobby doesn’t meet fire code. The roof doesn’t meet structural snow-load code. The building has never been touched in nearly 50 years. Same carpet,” Margerum said, lightly touching the rug in her office with her shoe. She and 11 other staff members will be moving to the nearby Boettcher Building during the construction and then returning to refurbished offices.
The biggest change to the building will be to the rear side walls of the auditorium, which today angle inward. The new walls will be pushed out and will include tall glass doors and windows that let both light and the outdoors into the auditorium, which was originally designed — but not built — with a surrounding deck.
“It is just going to have a lightness about it,” Curtis said.
Another key change is new wide entrances to both the gallery and library spaces that will open directly off the main lobby.
The 350 seats in the auditorium will be replaced with 404 new seats with comfortable cushions in a blonde wood frame. The chairs will be laid out with two side aisles instead of one center aisle.
The projection booth in the rear of the auditorium will be re-built so AV crews don’t have to sit in the house. The stage will about 3 feet larger and will have new production lighting, as well as two projection screens, one for film and one for video. The old industrial-size film projectors in the booth will be retained and used for film series. Film was important to Paepcke. “The Aspen Film Classics” series ran for 10 years before the auditorium was built.
Lectures were also central to Paepcke’s vision, and by 1960, the Institute reported that 30,000 people had attended its public lecture series. Paepcke Auditorium is a good place for a lecture. The approach to the building offers space and time to clear one’s head and the sparse, even stark, auditorium with cinder-block walls feels like a neutral space where ideas can be shared and contemplated with the best of intentions. (The cinder blocks are staying.)
A measure of how much the local community now values Paepcke Auditorium, and calls it their own, was evident in 2006 when Stewart and Lynda Resnick agreed to donate $4 million for a renovation of the auditorium. Institute officials attempted to recognize the Resnicks’ gift by renaming the auditorium “Resnick Auditorium” and keeping the name of the building as “the Paepcke Building.”
But the new name was rejected by many people, as most everyone in town calls the facility “Paepcke Auditorium.”
There is room for confusion. In the 1961 Aspen Institute report, the facility to be built was called “The Walter Paul Paepcke Memorial Auditorium.” Yet the iron dedication plaque outside the building, with a date of 1962, refers to it as the “Paepcke Building,” as do the silver letters on the exterior wall.
After an outcry about the importance of the Paepcke legacy, the Institute realized it had made a mistake, dropped the auditorium re-naming initiative and apologized to the Resnicks. A year later, the Resnicks still agreed to provide $3 million in funding along with $3 million from Leonard and Evelyn Lauder and $3 million from Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson. All without naming rights to the building, or the auditorium.
The Institute is still seeking donations to pay for the renovation, and naming rights for individual seats are being offered for $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000.
“But we’re asking people to contribute whatever they can,” Margerum said about the effort pay for the new building. “I’m getting all these great letters from people that say, ‘I love that building, I’ve come there all my life. I get so much out of it; here’s 50 bucks.’ It’s just great.”
The renovated Paepcke Auditorium is scheduled to open in early June 2010.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
