A buffet restaurant in downtown Gary, Indiana, is becoming a different kind of cultural smorgasbord. Following a recent facelift, the former eatery is now the home of “ArtHouse: A Social Kitchen”—a culinary business incubator and community events space.
Built in 2008, the restaurant was short-lived and sat vacant for the better part of a decade. To revive the 14,300-square-foot building, owned by the Gary Economic Development Corporation, the city collaborated with artist Theaster Gates’s Place Lab and successfully applied for grants to create and operate the ArtHouse for two years. The $1.65 million in grants included $177,000 for an exterior art intervention that would draw attention to the nondescript building (outfitted with a large commercial kitchen, it did not need substantial interior renovations). Charlottesville, Virginia–based architect Jeana Ripple and urban planner Barbara Brown Wilson won the competition for the public art portion.
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