Creatives are finding strength in community and dreaming and building towards the future. In this account, we hear from Dan Scully. He is an architect who has made his mark on downtown Keene in many ways. He was also in our first cohort of Ewing Arts Awardees.
We’re proud to share this story of creating The Showroom, the newest addition to the Colonial Performing Arts Center, from architect Dan Scully.
I have been involved with architecture my entire life, most consciously starting at age six when my parents planned and built a house, and it grew from there. My sandbox was the beginning of community planning with roads and buildings.
Scully Architects has been in the Monadnock Region for 40 years. I have often felt like a GP doctor to the community trying to help with all scales of design projects. Perhaps our biggest contributions have been in projects that have had the largest social impact on our communities in which we helped develop the master plans and primary buildings that were community transformative in the old railroad yards of Depot Square in Peterborough and the Railroad Street Development with MEDC in Keene. Both projects fundamentally changed the social and economic life in both downtowns.
Working with NextStage Design, our expectation is that the creation of the 2nd venue SHOWROOM for the Colonial Theater will further invigorate Keene’s downtown with a more modern mix of performance opportunities from the traditional passive audience to a more potentially interactive experience in a flexible facility able to transform itself to accommodate a wide range of events.
Architecturally at the SHOWROOM, we were able to re-use the existing 18” deep wide flange steel frame structure within the Showroom to set a post-industrial steel beam aesthetic that feels robust, young and active. Industrial dark gray tones have been used in the theater; bright vibrant colors in the lobby, that when lit up at night invitingly opens toward the future possibility of the Arts Corridor of the Keene community.