CSUN Trustees Approve Design for Media Center

California State University trustees have approved architect Robert A.M. Stern’s design for a new $16.8-million arts and media building at Cal State Northridge.

The building, to be completed by August 2000, will replace the campus’ fine arts building designed by famed Southern California modernist Richard Neutra. The Neutra building was heavily damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and demolished in 1997.

Stern is dean of the school of architecture at Yale University. Among his high-profile projects are the Disney feature animation building in Burbank and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.

The L-shaped, 80,000-square-foot building will house CSUN’s departments of radio-television-film, communication studies and journalism. Ninety percent of the funds will come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the rest from the state Office of Emergency Services. Approval came at the trustees meeting last Wednesday.