A "nerve center" pulsating with activity. A series of chambers that spiral outward like the shell of a nautilus. A shimmering glass mountain that derives its shape from the waterway below.
Those are a few of the concepts that architects have proposed for the design of a $107 million law school the University of Baltimore intends to build by 2012, with funding assistance from Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos.
University leaders will hold a news conference tomorrow to announce the winner of an international competition held this fall to select an architect for the John and Frances Angelos Law Center. It is planned for the northeast corner of Charles Street and Mount Royal Avenue, just south of Pennsylvania Station.
University President Robert Bogomolny has said he wants "an iconic, forward-looking building ... that will come to define the university and midtown Baltimore."
Angelos pledged $5 million toward construction, in honor of his parents. The nonprofit Abell Foundation provided $150,000 to hold the competition, which attracted architects from Canada, Europe and the United States.
On Friday, Bogomolny, law school dean Phillip J. Closius and a five-member jury watched as five finalists unveiled plans they were given two months to prepare. Students and faculty members followed the proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjoining auditorium.
The site is a triangular parcel bounded by Charles Street, Mount Royal Avenue and the Jones Falls Expressway. The competitors have said they want to work on the project because it's the sort of design challenge they like: a large building with an intriguing mix of spaces, a prominent site and a client that wants world-class architecture.
The first presentation was by the SmithGroup, an American firm with experience designing law schools and eco-friendly architecture. Partner David King compared the project to a human being's neural system. His group proposed a glass-clad building with an 11-story "information wall" and a central atrium crisscrossed by narrow footbridges connecting the three sides. A key feature, the Moot Court Room, would jut out over the sidewalk on the Charles Street side, covering the main entrance below.
Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie, who wrote the book For Everyone a Garden, proposed that the law center be set amidst and covered with gardens, that it be made with buff-colored concrete, with the interior spaces radiating outward from Charles and Mount Royal like the chambers of a nautilus shell.
