Docomomo Tour Day: Ant Farm Antioch Art Building

920 Corry Street,Yellow Springs OH 45387

08 October, 2022

Description

The Ant Farm Antioch Art Building (or AFAAB), a currently abandoned studio art building, was designed in 1971 by radical architecture and art collaborative Ant Farm and is located on the campus of Antioch College, in Yellow Springs Ohio. Ant Farm, who had never built anything besides plastic inflatables before getting the contract from Antioch, lived in a treehouse while they worked on this open, flexible space, which was designed for interdisciplinary artistic mingling. The building resembles a nightclub or a factory located on the edge of a bucolic, wooded college campus. The AFAAB building is one of the few built legacies of that era of architectural experimentation. Its surviving mass offers itself as a tool for experimenting with new proposals for future-oriented, ecologically conscious re-use and re-design strategies for architecture and the environment in which education and the built realm work in unison. In this tour, led by curator Liz Flyntz , you’ll walk around the currently disused building and discuss its recent listing on the National Register of Historic Places as well as future plans for adaptive reuse. We will also look at other buildings nearby on campus, and discuss their import. There are three other National Historic Register listed buildings on the Antioch College campus, all built around 1850: Main Hall, South Hall, and North Hall. One of them, North Hall, is the second-oldest LEED certified building in the US. Unfortunately, due to recent damage to the AFAAB building's glass roof, we can no longer enter the space so the tour will take place around the exterior and the grounds. Yellow Springs will also be presenting its annual Street Fair on October 8 (https://www.yellowspringsohio.org/street-fair/), the day of the tour, so town will be quite busy. We will have reserved parking on campus for attendees. Please park in the cone marked spots in the Corry Street lot, closest to the Art Building. Parking is $10 and benefits Antioch's Community Government. Your guide will meet you there. This event is part of Docomomo US Tour Day 2022. https://docomomo-us.org/events/tour-day