Glorya Kaufman Community Center Transforms Dormant Site into Cultural and Educational Hub

The first of its kind, the Glorya Kaufman Community Center at The Wende Museum is dedicated to the arts, education, outreach, and networking. The 7,500 square-foot multi-purpose space accommodates cultural, educational, and social services, featuring a live performance theater, demonstration garden, art spaces, and a space for Culver City Unified School District students.

The project included reactivating a dormant theater and replacing a dilapidated building with a new state-of-the-art facility that enables The Wende Museum to better fulfill its mission of expanding community and access. The team demolished an existing 2,200 square-foot building and constructed a new, three-story architectural concrete building that connects to an existing A-frame building on the property.

The new center blends in with the original Wende Museum structure, while varied concrete applications, vertical louvers, floor-to-ceiling windows, peeled-back façade, cantilevered outdoor stairs and balconies, and landscaping soften the heavy concrete forms of the building. By wrapping around the original A-frame theater, it becomes the centerpiece—honoring its original structure while modernizing it with new technical systems.

And by reactivating the existing A-frame theater, the project reduced the emissions from ground-up construction across those 2,200 square feet. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the new building ensure plenty of natural light, reducing the electric load. The indoor/outdoor layout with landscaping also contributes to the sustainability of the project, with native greenery along the center’s edges, terraces, and underside.

With flexible spaces for performances, classes and tutoring, art rooms, lectures and talks, the Glorya Kaufman Community Center is a Swiss army knife. It will help to address the community need for meeting venues and performance spaces, while also providing space for organizations to provide education, outreach, and networking services.

This innovative proposal was inspired by the vision of Glorya Kaufman, a legendary patron of the performing arts, whose foundation funded the project.