Art students, professors and classes are still displaced into November as construction on Julian T. White Hall continues, but College of Art and Design Interim Dean Rod Parker says the end is in sight.

Renovations on the building began three years ago when bricks started falling off, especially in the corners of the building. Plans were accelerated over the Fourth of July weekend this year when Parker and a coworker noticed a bulge in the overhanging wall where people enter and exit the building. The next day, a construction crew determined the whole wall was delaminating, and a crane was required to hold it up in case it fell.

Since then, the building has been closed off and pressurized to protect it from the elements. The construction is certain to conclude by fall of 2025, Parker said.

Julian T. White Hall, formerly the Design Building, was completed in 1984. During the construction, galvanized iron pins connected the brick facade to the building, meaning the bricks that made up the outside of the building were merely siding, Parker said, causing the issues the building now faces. He also mentioned that water had also seeped into the porous bricks of this siding.

Art history Professor William Ma said it makes sense. After living in Louisiana for so long, he noticed that the weather and climate causes deterioration. Ma also noted that the roof underwent emergency renovation a few years ago because rain was beginning to leak into the building, and some have speculated that mold was also inside the building. 

Since everybody inside the building would have to be relocated, Parker said it was an amazing coincidence that the Louisiana Digital Media Center had recently opened its third floor, where landscape architecture and interior design classrooms and offices are now located.

“The registrar’s office was brilliant in finding a place for everyone to go,” Parker said. The office has since relocated the 35-40 classes held in the four-story building, the dean’s and professors’ offices and the Clark and Laura Boyce Gallery. LSU’s popular City Pork location has also moved to the basement of Foster Hall.

As for what the LSU community should expect once the renovation finishes, Parker reined in any hopes of a total makeover. The inside of the building will remain practically untouched, aside from replacing the sheetrock walls and repainting due to water penetration. 

The exterior design is supposed to harmonize with the “old campus,” such as the quad, and the “new campus,” which includes the Business Education Complex, Patrick F. Taylor Hall and eventually, the new library. 

Parker said the renovation costs “well north of $10 million dollars,” a figure the Reveille couldn’t immediately confirm. Parker and Instructor Carla White mentioned that the state controls the building, which may be why not as much information is public about the renovations compared to other buildings on campus.

Art history professors did not move to the Digital Media Center. Instead, they moved to the fourth floor of Hatcher Hall, a building that was initially a male dormitory in the 1940s. 

“I kind of love it. I hate to give it up; it’s so spacious, and I have such a great view of this building,” White said, pointing to Tiger Stadium outside her office window. She said the office and classroom locations have helped her learn more about other buildings on campus and get in all her daily steps.

However, some professors feel they were not adequately informed about the building closure, especially since art professors often travel out of the country during the summer. 

Ma said he had a broken foot when he was contacted to remove his stuff, so he couldn’t move everything he wanted to. He also had a student with a broken foot, and their class initially relocated to the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, which he said wasn’t accessible. Two weeks into the semester, they moved again to Coates Hall.  

White said the offices were print-making studios that were left a mess. When the professors took them over, broken furniture lined the hallways, and it wasn’t until after they moved in that facility services came to clean everything up.

White’s relocation was easy as she was in Baton Rouge during the summer and moved everything she could. 

“What are you going to do? You just have to roll with it,” she said.