ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT PROJECT
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The Rubenstein Arts Center, Duke University
Durham
General contractor: Skanska USA Building, New York, N.Y.
Architect: William Rawn Associates, Architects, Boston
Cost: $50 million
Size: 71,000 square feet
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Aided by a $25 million gift from billionaire David Rubenstein, co-founder of Washington, D.C.-based private-equity firm The Carlyle Group and a 1970 Duke graduate, the building nicknamed “The Ruby” received the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design’s American Architecture Award for 2018. The center, which opened to students in January, houses the school’s dance program, WXDU student-run radio station and Arts of the Moving Image certificate program, which emphasizes motion-picture and digital-media arts. Inspired by industrial spaces and the work of American minimalist painter Robert Mangold, the steel and glass structure features polished concrete floors, exposed mechanical systems and subdued primary colors. The center includes a 200-seat theater, a 100-seat film-screening room, 10 multipurpose studios, three seminar classrooms and a makerspace. The Ruby is located across from the Nasher Museum of Art, which opened in 2005, on a stretch of campus recently dubbed the Duke Arts District.