VAPA at 50
Fall 2026
September 7–December 5, 2026
Featured events on Tuesday, November 3:
5:30-7:00 pm: Public reception in Usdan Gallery
7:00-8:30 pm: Panel discussion in Kinoteca
VAPA at 50 considers the history and future of the College’s iconic and Performing Arts Center, designed by architect Robertson Ward, Jr. The exhibition, curated by architecture faculty emeritus Donald Sherefkin and architect Garrick Jones ’94, features archival documents; a vast architectural model of VAPA; examples of work by former Bennington architecture students; and creative responses to VAPA by current Bennington students on the occasion of the building’s semicentennial.
Structured as an immersive physical timeline moving through the gallery, the exhibition maps four decades of intellectual cross-pollination among Ward, legendary architect Cedric Price, and other collaborators. Original drawings and documents on display come from Columbia University’s Avery Library as well as Bennington’s Crossett Library. A slideshow highlighting a community of Bennington alums features projects they developed within VAPA alongside representations of their professional work as artists, designers and architects.
Crucially, VAPA at 50 contains an architecture classroom for a seminar in which Bennington students examine this history and respond with speculative assignments that gradually become part of the exhibition. This process- and teaching-centered curatorial approach echoes the flexible and evocative vision behind VAPA’s design, presciently described in 1966 by architectural historian Betty Brown ’39, who served on the committee that hired Ward:
“ … all this not exactly one building, not exactly many, not exactly a building at all, simply a stream of energy rising and falling with areas of concentration and areas of expansion, each piece capable of having its own architectural identity … . A structure like this doesn’t need to have any particular beginning or end – certainly no monumental center. It can be expanded almost indefinitely, and at almost any point …”
A celebratory public reception in Usdan, 5:30-7 pm, will be followed by a panel discussion, 7-8 pm, with exhibition curators and guest architects held in the Kinoteca space located under the gallery.
Usdan Gallery is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 pm.
Image: Robertson Ward, Jr., VAPA Complex Schematic East West Elevation (detail), colored pencil on paper, 1968.