Courtesy of SPACE Architecture + Design
Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the arts organization that operates a number of performing and visual arts venues across St. Louis, announced Monday it’s opening a new literary arts center in summer 2019. The High Low, scheduled to open in two stories in a building at 3301 Washington in midtown, will feature a library, gallery, collaborative workspace, event space, and café.
“St. Louis has a strong literary arts tradition and has and continues to produce some of the greatest authors, poets and literary arts professionals in the world,” said Chris Hansen, executive director of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, in a press release. “The High Low seeks to uplift and nurture that strong tradition, ensuring that there is always a space, time, and place where the literary arts can start and graduate.”
In the front of the space, there will be a café/library with food by James Beard–nominated chef Rob Connoley, he of now-closed hyperlocal Squatters Café and the forthcoming foraging-focused Bulrush. The coffee program will be run by Blueprint. As for the library, the books will rotate, but it will feature books, magazines, and articles curated by those in the literary community. The first collection will be "The St. Louis Response."
Also on the first floor, a 600-square-foot temperature-and-humidity-controlled gallery (that can open up to 2,600 square feet) will host five to six rotating literary-arts-focused exhibits a year. In the back of the first floor, there are plans for a 2,000-square-foot, 200-capacity performance space dedicated to poetry readings, storytelling, literary series, and book signings.
Most exciting are the writing spaces. Upstairs, The High Low will feature two work areas. One is a writers’ suite, which will have desks and partitioned spaces available for writers, and will serve as the home for the forthcoming writers-in-residence program. It’s Kranzberg’s hope that the space will support local writers as well as attract national and international talent to come to St. Louis. There will also be space for writers to rent on a weekly or monthly basis. The other space will house professionals from other nonprofit organizations.
