Thursday, September 23, 1999
Dedicating a 'work of art'
Ceremony will open new research venue
BY OWEN FINDSEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A giant leaf graces the lawn in front of the Vontz Center as performers prepare balloons for the dedication.
(Glenn Hartong photos)
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With its bulging brick walls and skewed windows, it has been the subject of praise and ridicule. It's the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, which will be dedicated today on the University of Cincinnati Medical Campus.
“I thought it was going to be really offbeat, but it's turned out to be really great,” said Pat Hinkler of West Chester, who works in the nearby U.C. Employee Fitness Center.
“I go out for a walk every lunch hour, so I've been watching all this change.”
Her walk takes her past the $46 million Vontz Center, at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Eden Avenue, along a wide plaza through broad green spaces to the new Kingsgate Conference Center.
“Now I have a whole new landscape to walk through,” she said.
Marc Rieg, a second-year physical therapy student from Medina, Ohio, returned to the campus Wednesday for the first time since June.
“It looks beautiful now,” he said. “I see a lot of good things going on here.”
Mr. Rieg studied the ballooning brick Vontz Center carefully. “It's definitely something different, especial ly for Cincinnati. It's so unlike downtown Cincinnati.”
“I would love the building even if my family's name wasn't on it,” said Albert Vontz III, whose father contributed $5 million toward the construction of the building. “He went to the University of Cincinnati and credits much of his success to what he learned there, so he wanted to give something back.”
The Vontz family owns the Heidelberg Distributing Co.
“Our employees are local. Our clients are local. Our customers are local, so we like to do things that help the community,” Mr. Vontz said.
“When Dad said he wanted to contribute to this building I said go ahead, and he said "Wait, you haven't seen the design yet.' When he
showed me this exciting design I said, "You've got to do it!'”
Dr. John Winkelmann, who will be among the first of dozens of scientists and researchers to move into the building over the next several months, refers to it as sculpture. “It's going to be like living and working in a work of art,” he said.
Mr. Gehry, the California architect who makes news with every new building, will attend the dedication ceremony today wearing a clip-on microphone so CBS-TV can capture every word he utters as they televise a tour through his building.
Dr. Winkelmann first saw Mr. Gehry's architecture when he was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota.
“They were building the art museum that he designed there. It was very controversial, a wonderful shining metal sculpture on the bank of the Mississippi River. I was excited to know when I came to the University of Cincinnati that he was going to design a lab for us.”
The unusual nature of the building, with its bends, bulges and popping windows, caused “a lot of concern all the way through,” said U.C. Senior Staff Engineer George Morrissey.
“The shapes are uncommon,” agreed George Kemper, an architect with Baxter, Hodell, Donnelly Preston Inc., the Cincinnati architects who collaborated with Mr. Gehry's Los Angeles firm on the project. “But the construction methods are not all that unusual.”
Michelle Stamper polishes the letters in preparation for today's dedication.
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The building is sculpture on the outside and “very usable, very conventional scientific space inside,” Dr. Winkelmann said. “The laboratories are phenomenal, but they are conventional, designed by a fellow (Earl Walls) with world class experience in laboratory design.
“I'm moving in with a group of laboratory scientists who are studying the molecular basis of cancer and blood disease,” Dr. Winkelmann said.
“The equipment isn't much different from what we have in the old buildings, but what's really exciting is that there is going to be a grouping of scientists who have been working in different locations, bringing together people from different disciplines, to attack cancer and neurosciences together and in a collaborative way ... that is going to be more fruitful.”
Scientists will have to wait until the celebration for the new building ends before they can move into their new labs and offices.
“Moving in won't be difficult,” Dr. Winkelmann said. “No one is allowed to bring in their own furniture. All the furniture was picked out to go with the architectural theme.
“Every office is different and none is very large. A lot of us will have smaller offices than before, but it's worth it.”
Few straight lines can be found in the offices.
“My window sill is at such a great angle that I haven't figured out how I could use it,” he said.
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