More from the series on constructing the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis (which was previously abbreviated to just the ‘Shrem’, but is now formally referred to as the ‘Manetti Shrem’). As you may know I’ve been following its progress through lunchtime sketches, and now that the large steel frame of the canopy is going up, it is time to carry on. The museum will not open until next year some time but you can really see it taking shape now. In fact as I sketched the construction site last Friday from the edge of the Mondavi parking structure, One of the large steel girders, with two smaller girders hanging beneath it, was raised into place, as you can see from the sketchbook shot below with the ‘forty-minutes later’ scene behind it. I spoke to one of the construction workers before I began, showed him what I’d done the previous week, and then there he was up on that roof helping to weld that massive structure together. This building is going to be such an important addition to Davis, and particularly as it stands on the Vanderhoef Quad, named for the much beloved and respected former chancellor of the university Larry Vanderhoef, who passed away last week on the day before I made that sketch below. I met him just the once, in my early years at UCD, and shook his hand, a very sincere and likeable man, who had recently brought out a book about his quarter-century in Davis called “Indelibly Davis”. Indelible is right – many of the impressive large projects at UC Davis, such as the Mondavi Center, are part of his impressive legacy. RIP Chancellor Vanderhoef.

Previously on ‘Constructing the Manetti Shrem’:

Part Three… https://petescully.com/2015/08/07/constructing-the-shrem-part-three/

Part Two… https://petescully.com/2015/07/01/constructing-the-shrem-part-two/

Part One… https://petescully.com/2015/02/26/shrem-museum-under-construction/