Observer Welcome To Ruby City

This October, San Antonio will get an exciting addition to its art scene. Ruby City, a new arts center, realizes the vision of the late collector and philanthropist Linda Pace. Pace approached collecting intuitively, coming from a background as an artist herself, and she was highly invested in the artistic process. While Pace died in 2007, meticulous notes she left behind, as well as her work with collaborators like architect David Adjaye, created a thorough blueprint for those who wanted to carry out her vision.

The center is housed in a beautiful new building designed by Adjaye, appropriately colored coral sandstone red and featuring a distinctive angular shape. The structure comes from Pace’s dreams…literally. As Kelly O’Connor, Ruby City’s director of collections and communications, told Observer, “She had a dream of a ruby city, and she shared this with David and showed him a drawing.” There’s a clear fantastical element to the structure, and both the name and the stylized look of the campus suggest the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, but with the central color changed to match the look of the American Southwest. “You see these ideas in the materials of the building,” O’Connor points out. “There is this crushed red glass that glistens in the sunlight. Another huge inspiration was San Antonio’s native architecture. When David was here, he visited heritage sites, like the old Spanish missions. He studied in-depth how the light enters the space of these buildings. He even mimicked their vaulted ceilings in his own design.”