Historic Preservation & Art: Exploring New Vision Studio

Join us for an evening of discussing art, historic preservation, and the reuse of industrial artifacts from Pittsburgh’s built environment as we tour artist Corey Bonnet’s New Vision studio housed in the Energy Innovation Center in the Hill District.

The evening will include a presentation by Bonnet, discussing his passion for painting historic and contemporary Pittsburgh scenes while utilizing salvaged materials from our city’s industrial past. Bonnet’s brilliantly illuminated 10,000-square-foot studio is located within the Energy Innovation Center which occupies the former Clifford B. Connelley Trade School building (Edward B. Lee; opened 1931). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the Connelley Trade School was thoughtfully rehabilitated to high preservation standards.

The center is an incubator for various types of entities doing research in sustainable energy and offers workforce training programs to support a green economy. Our organization controls a preservation easement on the building in which the old comfortably accommodates the new, and it is the perfect setting for Bonnet and his preservation-inspired work.