On a brilliant early fall Saturday on Sept. 20, the university community officially reopened Sullivant Hall following a three-year, $31 million transformation. Approximately 1,200 people attended the afternoon festivities, which included remarks from university President Michael Drake, a ribbon-cutting honoring donors Lawrence and Isabel Barnett and their family, open houses in the building’s arts centers and units, and a world premiere dance performance created and directed by renowned choreographer Stephan Koplowitz {click to view Broad & High video}.

Drake praised the building’s collaborative focus on the arts, and its teaching of “the art of business, and the business of arts” as well as its place as a key anchor in the university’s Arts District.

The Neo Classical Revival structure, which dates back to 1912, has, over the years, housed the Ohio Historical Society’s museum, the archaeological museum, zoology museum and a Fine Arts Gallery. Today, it is home to the Departments of Dance and Arts Administration, Education and Policy; the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD); and the Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise. In addition, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum is housed there.

To celebrate the building’s reopening, Koplowitz’s site-specific and site-inspired event called Sullivant’s Travels included performances in 11 different spaces throughout the building, from an outdoor balcony and the soaring rotunda to dance studios and the Barnett Theatre.