Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center

Performance, Flexibility, and Identity

Mortenson delivered the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center for Colorado College, an interdisciplinary arts facility designed by Antoine Predock in collaboration with Anderson Mason Dale to support performance, teaching, and media arts within one connected environment. The project’s defining achievement is its acoustical control: performance venues and learning spaces are carefully isolated from a central open collaborative zone, allowing focused instruction and production to occur alongside informal interaction. Through precise detailing, spatial separation, and flexible venue design, the building supports everything from fixed-seat performances to black box and theater-in-the-round configurations.

Opened in 2008 as part of Colorado College’s broader 21st-century campus modernization, the facility created a new hub for innovative, experimental, and collaborative arts programming supported by state-of-the-art technology.

Acoustical Control as a Core Design Strategy

Acoustical control and detailing were central to how the building was organized and built. Rather than treating performance spaces as isolated rooms within a conventional academic building, the design uses spatial separation, enclosure detailing, and material choices to isolate sound-sensitive venues while preserving an open, collaborative zone at the center of the building.

This strategy allows the theater and learning environments to function independently from shared circulation and gathering areas, so collaboration can happen in the open middle space without undermining performance or instruction. The result is a building that supports both concentration and interaction at the same time.

Flexible Performance Environment

The building was designed to support a wide spectrum of performance types rather than a single fixed use. Major venues include the main auditorium, black box theater, screening room, sound stage, and interdisciplinary arts spaces. Mortenson’s own project description identifies a 405-seat auditorium, black box performance venue, sound stage, 108-seat screening room, IDEA Space, flex room, classrooms, offices, and digital media labs.

That flexibility is especially important in the performance venues:

• The main theater combines fixed seating with adaptable performance capability
• The black box theater is intentionally flexible and can support multiple staging arrangements
• Theater-in-the-round capability expands how the space can be used for teaching and performance
• Shared arts spaces support teaching, rehearsal, exhibition, and production in parallel

The building is described as a network of linked, flexible spaces designed to accommodate multiple functions, including an auditorium, sound stage, screening room, classrooms with reconfigurable partitions, and an atrium with amphitheater seating and exhibition space.

Technology Supporting Performance

The project’s flexibility is reinforced by integrated performance and media systems. Colorado College and Mortenson both describe the building as supporting theater, film, video, music, and digital media through specialized labs, projection capability, and adaptable infrastructure.

The technical complexity extended beyond architecture to theatrical and AV systems. The project is a performing arts center with complete theatrical, audio visual, and stage rigging systems, including a screening room, auditorium, satellite performance studios, and four interconnected control rooms.

Long-Term Performance Value

The building continues to demonstrate the value of its original acoustical and spatial strategy. Designed to support a wide range of performances and reconfigurable use over time, the theater accommodates performances, screenings, exhibitions, and campus events through adaptable acoustic conditions. This flexibility allows the space to support varied performance types while maintaining consistent sound quality.

Design Impact

More than a signature object, the Cornerstone Arts Center is a building where design, acoustics, and flexibility work together to support Colorado College’s academic model. Its value comes from how well it separates sound-sensitive spaces, protects performance quality, and still creates an open environment that encourages visibility, interaction, and interdisciplinary collaboration.