Campus

Photo: Tom Crane

Historic Landmark Building
Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building
Student Housing
Digital Lab
Exhibition Galleries
Auditorium and Conference Room
Student Lounge and Cafe

One of the best things about PAFA is the combination of old and new. Here at PAFA, you get the best of both worlds. Unifying PAFA’s campus, Lenfest Plaza stands between the Academy’s Historic Landmark Building and the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building. The Plaza, a new civic space, was designed by internationally renowned landscape architecture firm OLIN and offers public outdoor seating and rotating works of emerging and established artists in an urban setting. Students can be seen throughout the day working and relaxing on the Plaza.

PAFA commissioned world-renowned artist Claes Oldenburg to create a new public artwork for its Lenfest Plaza. Oldenburg titled the work Paint Torch, merging two ideas in this project: the paintbrush and the torch. He stated that the paintbrush is a good fit for PAFA, to “celebrate a place where painting with a brush is really practiced.” Thus the work honors the location as well as the School's activities. The design consists of a 51-foot-high sculpture in the form of a paintbrush, raised at a 60-degree angle, as if in the act of painting, with a 6-foot glob of paint on the ground below. The sculpture has quickly become a Philadelphia icon.

Historic Landmark Building

The Historic Landmark Building, a High Victorian Gothic building designed by Frank Furness and George W. Hewitt, was constructed in 1876. Identified as a National Historic Landmark, this building—together with the Museum's collection—is one of the nation's cultural treasures. Its design incorporates gallery space with six historic studios and an anatomical drawing studio.

The Academy’s Museum houses a collection of:

• more than 1,700 paintings
• 400 sculptures
• 9,500 works on paper
• hundreds of manuscripts, photographs, sketches and other primary source material from the mid-1700s to the present. Read more…

PAFA has an active program of acquiring exemplary pieces of contemporary art—including work by Academy students, alumni and faculty.

Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building

The majority of the Academy's classrooms and studios are situated on floors 4 through 10 of the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building:

• The third floor of the Hamilton Building houses administrative staff, the Office of Student Affairs and the Library.
• The fourth floor houses student studios, classrooms, the offices of the Department of Liberal Arts, two large studio classrooms and a large-scale critique room.
• The sixth floor houses the Printmaking studios, a drawing classroom, the Student Store and more student studios.
• The seventh floor houses student studios and the Sculpture studios and classrooms, including the foundry, various shops and the clay modeling studios.
• The eighth floor houses the studios and offices of the Graduate program and graduate student studios.
• The ninth floor houses student studios and seminar classrooms and a frameshop.
• The tenth floor houses the painting program offices and classrooms, individual student studios and two large skylit studios for life painting.
• The eleventh floor houses the student lounge and exhibition areas.

Read more about our Studio Art Facilities…

Digital Lab

The new digital lab in the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building is supported by a wireless network and has:

• 17 workstations, equipped with both Dell Pentium 4s and Apple G5s
• large-format printers
• 3 digital flatbed scanners
• 4 DeskJet printers
• 2 stations dedicated to high-end graphics usage
• a ceiling-mounted projector.

Exhibition Galleries

Each spring, the Museum galleries are cleared to make room for the Annual Student Exhibition.

The School Gallery: Gift of the Women’s Board is a gallery within the Museum devoted to the faculty and alumni of the Academy. Its purpose is to mount exhibitions that exemplify the Academy’s teaching mission and its School programs.

The Student Gallery 128, located on the lower level of the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, mounts rotating exhibitions of student work from the Certificate, Graduate, and Continuing Education Programs, as well as from alumni and faculty.

The PAFA Alumni Sales Gallery, located in the Historic Landmark Building, features changing exhibitions of alumni artworks.

Auditorium and Conference Room

The Academy auditorium and conference room are available for liberal arts classes.

Student Lounge and Cafe

There is a student lounge area and restaurant facility on the top floor of the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, as well as access to a rooftop terrace with wonderful views of the city.