Collaboration was the theme at the ‘groundbuilding’ for the Wolfe Center for the Arts on Saturday. Collaboration between the University president and her predecessor, between a Norwegian- and a Toledo-based architecture firm and the hope that students in theater and film, musical arts and the fine arts will collaborate in their works. The facility, which is expected to be completed by Fall 2011 with construction expected to start this fall, will be located at former home of the Saddlemire Student Services Building between the Fine Arts Center and the Moore Musical Arts Center. The facility will be the new home of the Department of Theater and Film and will feature a main theater, a black box stage, classrooms, editing bays and a choral rehearsal room. Simon Morgan-Russell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, acknowledged the history of collaboration between the College of Musical Arts, College of Art and the Department of Theatre and Film. ‘When the Wolfe Center is completed, for the first time those collaborations will take place under the same roof creating a much richer, energetic and creative learning environment,’ Morgan-Russell said. ‘And the center will reach far beyond students majoring in theater, film, art or music. I think you will agree that an understanding and appreciation for the arts can benefit all students.’ The ceremony featured performances from all aspects of the University’s art community, including an assembling of a ceramic model of the facility by ceramics’ students, a wind symphony, a Taiko drum line, a theater performance with life-size’ human plaster casts and dancing. Senior Greg Harrison, an art education major, helped assemble the ceramic model, which he said represented the collaboration of the arts. ‘To me it symbolized the different arts communities coming together to build the center,’ Harrison said. Former University President Sidney Ribeau and his wife Paula Whetsel-Ribeau returned to the University for the ceremony, which he described as a ‘gratifying experience.’ Ribeau thanked the namesakes for the facility, Fritz and Mary Wolfe, and the namesakes for the main theater, Thomas and Kathleen Donnell, for their donations to the facility. ‘This gift is the realization of a dream for many, many years at Bowling Green State University,’ Ribeau said. ‘The arts have worked together to try to accomplish the dream, but you need space and a place and facilities to give form and definition for your dreams.’ Ribeau was acknowledged for his fundraising for the center with the Building Dreams Campaign, and it was announced that the plaza outside the center would be named in his honor. During the time Mary Wolfe has spent at the University as a student and teacher, she saw how important the arts were to the school, which prompted her and her husband’s donation to the facility. ‘The reputation that the arts at Bowling Green have are known all over the country and more, perhaps,’ she said. ‘So I am really so thrilled to be involved at all in a project that would increase the meaning of the arts here at Bowling Green.’ The facility is being designed and completed by Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta with Collaborative Inc. of Toledo serving as associate architect for the project. Snohetta’s projects include the Oslo Opera House in Norway, Alexandria Library in Egypt, the King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture in Saudi Arabia and the upcoming Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. The Wolfe Center can help the growth of culture at the University and also serve as a bridge to other communities and cultures at a national and international level, said Craig Dykers, founding member of Snohetta. The history of the arts at the University was a pleasant surprise to Dykers. ‘Not only did we find a very rich and provocative program for the arts, but a community and a University that was thriving in a way that was really very surprising to us and we could see it growing and we hope this building will be a part of this growth,’ Dykers said.