Title adapted from “(The) Green Door,” a 1956 popular song by Shakin Stevens with music composed by Bob Davie and lyrics written by Marvin Moore: “Midnight, one more night without sleepin’ / Watchin’, till the morning comes creepin’ / Green door, what’s that secret you’re keepin’? / There’s an old piano and they play it hot behind the green door / Don’t know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot behind the green door / Wish they’d let me in so I could find out what’s behind the green door”
Speculation about what’s going on behind the new internal door to the southwest wing of the ground floor of Ellison Hall has been rife ever since the History of Art & Architecture Department began its installation last July, and comments made by Geography personnel about the double door’s unremittingly utilitarian design were less than flattering. When the double door was primed with battleship gray paint, one professor suggested putting a sign reading “cell block #1” above it, and a staff member suggested a sign reading “this is where bad Geography students end up.” Eyebrows arched even higher when the door received a final coat of screaming brick red paint—Greg Ederer, a Geography research staffer, said it reminded him of a line from the Rolling Stones’ 1966 song: “I see a red door and I want it painted black.”
The much maligned door actually has an innocuous explanation. The History of Art & Architecture Department has temporarily relocated to Ellison Hall and originally planned to make the Ellison ground floor wing climate-controlled in order to store some of their collections. An internal double glass door to the wing was suggested for aesthetic reasons; however, the Fire Marshall decreed that the door had to be made of steel – and form follows function and all that. The Department decided that, since it couldn’t disguise the resulting door design, it might as well make it a feature – hence the flamboyant splash of color which sure livens up Ellison’s ground floor (the external–and unpainted–door to the wing was permanently closed on July 28). Furthermore, according to the Department’s Visual Resources Collection blog: “Why red? In addition to the color having a nice tie-in to our Red Dot blog, it seems red doors have a mostly positive significance” (more here).
So, what is behind the red door (besides a trendy popcorn machine in EH 1814)? A new sign states that it’s the “Image Resource Center”: “As of today, August 2, the entire History of Art & Architecture Dept., including the Visual Resources Collection, has been relocated to Ellison Hall. The VRC is still in the middle of what is a very big move, but hopefully by tomorrow the unpacking and settling in can start. New location = new beginnings = new name – we are rebranding ourselves as The Image Resource Center. We have lots of program, training, and exhibit ideas – stay tuned for further announcements.”
As for the contents of the Image Resource Center, “The Visual Resources Collection consists of over 39,000 digital images and 350,000 35mm slides which provide comprehensive coverage of Western and non-Western art and architecture. The VRC catalogue contains over 85,000 records, from both the VRC’s own collection and the images and data from Archivision…The primary function of the VRC is to provide a teaching and research service to History of Art & Architecture Faculty, and to all UCSB faculty and graduate students. The VRC staff can provide assistance with access to the various licensed and free digital image archives available, such as ARTstor, and can assist with implementation of new image technology in teaching” (source). So now we know…
Article by Bill Norrington
