New High-Tech Visual Arts Center Transforms Marymount Manhattan College Campus into Creative Hub with “The Judy”

The Judith Mara Carson Center for Visual Arts at Marymount Manhattan College (MMC) now occupies the top two floors of a historic John Russell Pope-designed building. This 12,000 square foot space serves as a vibrant, cross-disciplinary hub for the college’s visual arts programs, encompassing graphic design, illustration, animation, costume design, web design, and book design. Nicknamed “The Judy,” this center offers a new “Great Atelier” in Manhattan, inviting the New York art community to engage in multidisciplinary creativity and discourse within its daylight-filled studios.

Designed by the architectural firm DSK | Dewing Schmid Kearns, The Judy optimizes space utilization in a dense urban setting. The transformation of the static 7th and 8th-floor spaces into a cutting-edge Visual Arts Center has revitalized this diverse artistic community, introducing dynamic event, gala, and performance areas. The Judy features three South Studios, which are divided by flexible, operable glass walls. Above these studios, a new glass skylight diffuses and optimizes natural light for drawing, painting, and sculpting. The North Studios house Printmaking, 3D Wet and Dry areas, and an Immersive Digital Lab, providing advanced space and technology for experimental programs.

Visitors enter through a top-floor atrium, a soaring multipurpose space beneath a glass roof equipped with baffles to control natural light. Light also floods into the digital studio spaces where 2D and 3D works, including painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, mold making, woodwork, laser cutting, performance art, and installation, are created. A combination digital lab and immersive gallery with a wrap-around display accommodates large-scale audio/visual projects and showcases time-based media, such as animation, video, and film, alongside traditional mediums like sculptures and paintings. Multipurpose studios and critique spaces with worktables support production in illustration, watercolor, bookmaking, collage, design, and color theory.

The project surpassed New York State’s stringent requirements for Minority/Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) investment. Shawmut partnered with Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), an innovative employment model that prepares, trains, and places women in skilled construction trades, throughout the project.

The center was made possible by a $25 million gift from The Carson Family Charitable Trust. The gift—the largest in the College’s 85-year history—will also support student scholarships. A well-known champion of New York City arts and culture, Judy Carson graduated from MMC in 2003 with a degree in Art History.

The Judy was announced as a Finalist in the Architizer A+ Awards in the category of Institutional: Educational Interiors and received recognition at the Boston Society of Architects Design Awards Gala in the category of Built Design Excellence: Interior Architecture.