In Construction: UT Pan American Fine Arts Complex

In his article on the UT Pan American Fine Arts Complex for the Architect's Newspaper, Aaron Seward notes that while Page's new building relates to Kenneth Bentsen’s Kahn-inspired forms, the design adds a playful and contemporary twist.

The University of Texas Pan American (UTPA) in Edinburg, Texas, is one of those rare college campuses that was master planned and designed almost entirely by one architect: the now deceased Kenneth Bentsen of Houston. In the 1970s, he laid out a large rectangular covered walkway, located mechanical services in its ceiling, and plugged all of the campus structures into it. The vocabulary of the architecture itself—and Bentsen designed nearly 20 of the campus’ buildings—is based on Louis Kahn’s work in Ahmedabad, India, and Dacca, Bangladesh: heavily walled and well-detailed brick buildings with arched apertures that sit comfortably in the sultry climate of South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

Read the entire article, In Construction> UT Pan American Fine Arts Complex, by Aaron Seward. The Architect's Newspaper, August 7, 2014.