VCU Turns to Steven Holl Architects for New Arts Center Virginia Commonwealth University has long been one of the leading public university graduate arts and design programs in the country. Now it also wants to be a cultural destination for audiences and performers. The university on Wednesday unveiled the design for a new $32 million Institute for Contemporary Art, designed by Steven Holl and Chris McVoy of Steven Holl Architects. Calling the 38,000-square-foot building "part exhibition and performance space, part lab and incubator," the university said the institute will feature a series of flexible programming spaces for visual art, theater, music, dance and film.There will be an auditorium with more than 240 seats, a sculpture garden, classrooms and a cafe. The project is scheduled to open in 2015; $14 million has been raised so far. A search for a director is underway, and the university hopes to break ground in 2013. Mr. Holl also designed the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City; the School of Art & Art History at the University of Iowa; and an expansion for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. His design will be presented in an exhibition opening April 26 at the Meulensteen gallery in New York.