What the MEC? Downtown’s Musical Jewel Box

When Michael Holliday, Lawrence Scarpa, and Angela Brooks were juggling their T-squares, balsa wood, and glue guns at the University of Florida in Gainesville (go Gators), they likely didn’t foresee the momentous project on which they would be collaborating in far-flung 2025. 

Even as these architects-in-training made final preparations to enter the profession, some 2,500 miles away the Music Academy of the West (MAW) basked in verdant beachside splendor, awaiting the moment when, in the fullness of time (as they say), the three professionally mature pals would reconvene to usher the beloved MAW to its next epochal iteration – a vanguard performance and education center smack in the middle of Santa Barbara’s downtown. 

MAW’s summer classical music training program – launched in 1947 – has long since hit its renowned stride, welcoming into its floral, gated hideaway both young master musicians from across the seven seas, and a public eager to partake of the gorgeous musical art they perform. Nearing its 80^th birthday, the Academy’s leadership sought to effect a more frankly public-facing posture. As MAW CEO Shauna Quill nicely summarized: “We have this vision to get beyond those gates.” To be clear, the Music Academy gates had always been flung wide in welcome; but the very presence of a gate can conjure an added barrier to entry for those already hesitant to approach the (mis)perceived citadel of classical music.

In 2025 a property in downtown Santa Barbra was acquired. Enter three gifted Gators. 

“This will be a world-class design effort led by my good friends and former college classmates Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, and Angie Brooks, FAIA,” says Michael Holliday. “This is a full-circle moment.” At 901 State Street, Santa Barbara’s DMHA Architecture + Interior Design and Los Angeles’ Brooks, Scarpa, Huber Architects are preparing to hunker down over a midtown music box in which will inhere a wildly engineered sonic chamber – and the promise of a bustlingly reanimated downtown. Let’s talk briefly about the project in the rhapsodic argot of high-flying architecture. Here goes.

At the core of the building, a dramatic architectural intervention opens portions of the second-floor slab and roof, creating a soaring vertical atrium. The effect is luminous and uplifting – a contemporary counterpoint to the building’s traditional exterior. 

Within this space sits The Jewel: a sculptural, curving architectural form that becomes the spiritual and acoustic heart of the Center. Inspired by the fluidity of musical expression, the Jewel integrates performance, rehearsal, and technical systems into a seamless environment; vanguard acoustic technology and an aesthetically mesmerizing milieu combining to reframe Santa Barbara’s downtown, and music appreciation itself. 

“MAW is an extraordinary organization, and this project carries profound cultural significance for Santa Barbara,” Holliday says.