The Maitland Art Center, designated a National Historic Landmark because of its unique Mayan-style architecture, will soon look different. The complex, part of the Art & History Museums — Maitland, will undergo its first major expansion since the lifetime of founder Jules André Smith, who died more than 65 years ago.
A&H Museums executive director Danielle Thomas said the two new buildings to be erected on the north side of the campus have been designed to complement the distinctive style that earned the center its landmark status in 2014.
“It is a beautiful design, and we’re really excited to be moving forward with it,” she said.
The buildings were designed by architect Mark Straite to neither duplicate nor overshadow Smith’s sculptures, carvings and murals that decorate walls, courtyards and buildings. The center’s existing buildings display one of the only remaining examples of “fantasy architecture” in the Southeast. “Fantasy architecture” is a term encompassing the distinctive Art Deco-Mayan Revival features, including symbols drawn from Christian, Mayan, Asian and mythological sources.
The project description states, “the buildings will echo the campus’s signature Mayan Revival and Art Deco style through exposed concrete, streamlined forms, cast medallions and a new sculptural installation inspired by André Smith’s original designs.”
Jim Patterson teaches a ceramics class in a small studio building on the Maitland Art Center campus that wasn’t designed to accommodate multiple students. An expansion will allow more students to study art in modern classrooms. (Courtesy A&H Museums — Maitland)
The two new buildings will serve a double purpose, Thomas said. They will expand the center’s education space so more art lovers can participate in classes, while allowing the campus’s studios — currently serving as cramped classrooms — to return to their original function as artist workspaces.
“These are buildings that were never meant to house classes,” Thomas said of the small studios. “They will be restored to their historical purpose.”
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The new classrooms will double the size of classes from six to 12 art students, and will allow more classes to be offered each week. With growing interest, especially in ceramics, adding space was a necessity, according to Thomas.
“We have more demand than we can meet,” she said. One of the buildings will be turned over to ceramics instruction, while the other will be used to teach painting and drawing. The two-building addition will be named the Que Throm and Cicero Greathouse Education Studios, and a gallery will display works by the two artists and others.
Que Throm and Cicero Greathouse are pictured at the Maitland Art Center. The artists, both of whom have died, left a bequest that will help fund the center’s expansion. The new buildings will be named the Que Throm and Cicero Greathouse Education Studios. (Courtesy A&H Museums — Maitland)
Throm was a founding faculty member of Valencia College’s visual arts department who served on the A&H Museums board of directors, and Greathouse was a Disney Imagineer who maintained a studio at the center as part of its Artist in Action program.
A bequest from the couple’s estate is helping fund the $3 million project, Thomas said, along with private donations and money from the Orange County cultural-facilities program, funded by the Tourist Development Tax on hotel and other overnight stays. Once construction gets underway, the nonprofit plans a fundraising campaign to furnish the classrooms.
An Oct. 9 groundbreaking is planned, with Lamm & Company Partners as builder. In-kind support is being provided by JCR Consulting for landscaping and Walter P. Moore for structural engineering.
The Art & History Museums organization is working on a wide-ranging modernization initiative, which includes a recently activated self-guided tour accessed via a phone app, as well as a forthcoming new website. Longer-range plans include a new gallery to permanently showcase founder Smith’s work, and work on the Maitland History Museum.
The Maitland Art Center has recently refreshed its landscaping. (Courtesy Roberto Gonzalez via A&H Museums — Maitland)
Recently completed was a beautification project that saw the campus grounds replanted. Foliage native to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, where the Mayan civilization flourished, was chosen to complement the architecture. Other areas feature plants from the eastern Asian coast to reflect the childhood of Smith, who was born in 1880 in Hong Kong.
“It’s an effort to build out the art center in a meaningful way,” Thomas said of the upcoming expansion. “We’re in this beautiful moment to take the arts center into the future, both digitally and physically.”
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