Column and Stripe: Transformer Station Hard Hat Tour (@ClevelandArt #ColumnAndStripe)

I'm a sucker for a construction site -- I'm see a lot of interesting sites through my day job (a hard hat and a reflective safety vest are perpetually in my trunk) but some of the sites I find most interesting are a little bit trickier to access -- the Cleveland Museum of Art's new gallery space (I am forever tempted to sneak around the barrier and go for a look-see) being one example. [Rachel and I did sneak in for the Atrium preview which was an amazing opportunity to peek in].

The Transformer Station, on West 29th Street on Cleveland's West Side is an interesting collaboration between the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation and The Cleveland Museum of Art, with each organization programming the space for six months out of the year. Tonight, the Bidwells and their Architect invited Column and Stripe and AIA Cleveland members for a presentation on the project and to tour the space well before it's February 1, 2013 public opening.

 

Once the formal presentation had ended the assembled guests were free to roam throughout the building and peek into, over, and under every nook and cranny of the space -- from an old tunnel that one presumes brought the conductors  powering Cleveland's street cars in and out of the building and glass insulators on the ceiling in the historic original building to the elevator shaft and gallery space in the new addition (oh and the 15-ton capacity overhead crane in the original building definitely makes a unique statement in the appropriately named crane gallery.

 

After the nooks and crannies had been thoroughly explored, Column and Stripe's president Graham Veysey hosted the attendees in his hip pad across the street at the Ohio City Firehouse with an assortment of beer, appetizers, conversation, and food courtesy of Touch Supper Club's food truck.

Lincoln
(Full disclosure: I serve as the chair for Column and Stripe's Philanthropy Committee)