PRATT OPENS NEW STUDIOS FOR M.F.A. CANDIDATES
L-R: The new Flushing Avenue studios; first-year M.F.A. candidate in painting Anna Sorenson The Department of Fine Arts has leased a 10,460-square-foot space near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and turned it into 36 semi-private studios for some of its first-year M.F.A. candidates studying painting and drawing, and a seminar room for classes.
The Institute entered into a five-year lease for one floor of the five-story industrial building at 248 Flushing Avenue between Hall and Ryerson Streets, because of an increase in the number of undergraduate freshmen, as well as M.F.A. candidates, who enrolled at Pratt this year.
Until this school year began, one campus building, Cannoneer Court, offered both residential and studio space. However, due to the increased number of freshmen living on campus, it was converted into an entirely residential space.
The Flushing Avenue space, which is a 10-minute walk from campus, is equipped with wireless Internet and storage racks in common areas as well as individual desks, chairs, and personal file cabinets in each of the studio spaces. As with Pratt’s other studio spaces, students are guaranteed access 24 hours a day, seven days a week on every day of the year except Christmas.
The space in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Navy Yard is in an area quickly being rented by artists and other creative professionals. Many Pratt alumni and faculty work in studios nearby, something Fine Arts Chair Donna Moran says will be beneficial.
“The studios at Flushing Avenue afford our students a professional working environment in close proximity to the flourishing artist’s community that is part of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and its surrounding environs,” says Moran. “The spaces are geared towards the individual while still promoting a healthy atmosphere for peer dialogue.”
There are currently 147 students enrolled in the Graduate Fine Arts program, 68 of whom are first-year students. The program, which emphasizes fine arts disciplines in painting and drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and new forms, was ranked fifteenth in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report in its 2009 guide to America’s Best Graduate Schools.
Meantime, in Manhattan, Pratt also opened a new, 10,000-square-foot facility at 123 West 18th Street that will house 125 student studios, a computer lab, printing facilities, a resource center, and a lecture and seminar room for its Graduate Communications and Package Design Department in anticipation of its new M.F.A. degree program that will be offered starting in fall 2011.
Photos: Amy Aronoff
Gateway Editors
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The spaces are geared towards the individual while still promoting a healthy atmosphere for peer dialogue.
In Manhattan, Pratt also opened a new, 10,000-square-foot facility at 123 West 18th Street that will house 125 student studios, a computer lab, printing facilities, a resource center, and a lecture and seminar room wow gold for its Graduate Communications and Package Design Department in anticipation of its new M.F.A. degree program that will be offered starting in fall 2011.
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