Designed in 1892 by L. Gustav Hallberg as a private residence, Bronzeville’s South Side Community Art Center was internally renovated in the New Bauhaus style to house the Works Progress Administration’s Community Art Center program in 1940. The SSCAC is the last continuously operating Art Center from the WPA era.

Arda conducted a non-intrusive interior and exterior examination of the historic building and its coach house, followed by a report to the SSCAC and the National Trust detailing needed repairs and historically appropriate restorations. To preserve the historic character of the building, Arda recommended rebuilding chimneys to replace earlier out-of-character repairs, recreating a historic cornice that had been removed, restoring and reinstalling historically accurate wood windows, removing an incompatible ceiling in the gallery and restoring the ceiling’s 1940 lighting cove, and general rehabilitation of interior elements. Arda then designed restoration work including window replacement and envelope repairs.