Ground was broken for the 180,540-square-foot Art and Architecture Building on February 13, 1977. The facility would serve the Department (now School) of Art, which was occupying 11 former residences, a coal bin (sculpture studio) and part of the McClung Museum, and would provide expanded space for the School of Architecture (now College of Architecture and Design), which was located in Estabrook Hall.
Governor Ray Blanton, who vetoed the bond issue for the project in 1975, participated in the groundbreaking. Chancellor Jack Reese presided, and President Edward J. Boling introduced Blanton. Blanton spoke briefly and then climbed on one of the bulldozers idled for the ceremony and turned more soil. The building was scheduled for completion in fall 1979.
In 1979 more than 20 subcontractors complained that the general contractor, Rush Engineering, had not paid them. After discussions with the Home Insurance Company of New York, the bonding company that guaranteed the building’s completion, UT terminated the contract with Rush Engineering on March 17, 1980. A flurry of lawsuits and counter lawsuits followed. Knoxville’s Blaine-Hays completed the building.
At the fall 1981 dedication ceremony, UT Chancellor Jack Reese quipped that some of the fall traditions at the university over the years had been “pep rallies, football games, and construction of the Art/Architecture building.”
The building is the only UT structure whose design was selected as a result of a national competition and juried by nationally prominent architects. Local firms had no inside track among the 53 entries received, but the Knoxville firm McCarty, Bullock and Holsaple (now McCarty Holsaple McCarty) was selected. The building was the first that the father-and-son team of Bruce and Doug McCarty worked on together. The building is probably Bruce McCarty’s most controversial local project, condemned by some for its stark, brutalist concrete exterior. McCarty indicated in a March 2010 article in Metropulse that he would consider a different material on the exterior (and a different contractor) if he were doing it again.
The building’s interior is a lively one—in the center of the building, running its length, is an area open from the ground to the fourth floor ceiling, which is called the street. A large area in the east end of the street has thick wooden flooring, allowing students to build large projects—even an entire house would fit—using the wood flooring as the base. Offices protrude into the street on upper floors. The first floor contains among other things, a foundry, a woodworking area, and a welding and sculpting area. Exposed, brightly colored pipes run throughout the building so that students can ascertain how the infrastructure for the facility operates.
The Faculty Senate had passed a resolution in 1976 recommending that the building be named for the late C. Kermit Ewing, the first head of the art program. Instead, the decision was made to name the art gallery within the structure for him.
A $330,000 addition, also designed by McCarty, Bullock, and Holsaple, to the north of the building houses the ceramics program of the School of Art. The addition was authorized in 1982, following completion of the Art and Architecture Building.