Beyond Supersonic at Art Center College of Design

When I attended the Art Center College of Design at the original building on 3^rd Street in Los Angeles, I felt as if I had reached the first step to a long and fulfilling career in photography. Graduation was the highlight of my life, a dream becoming reality. 

Many years later, when I had established myself in L.A., Jay Sanders, then director of Art Center’s Transportation Design department and now associate provost of academic operations, asked me to be on the advisory board of the Art Center Car Classic, held at the Pasadena hillside campus in the east lawn sculpture garden. The show was created in 2003 with the goal of capturing the excitement of car design with a behind-the-scenes look at how vehicles make their way from concepts to the highways, racetracks, and showrooms of the world. 

Stewart Reed (retired chair of Art Center’s Transportation Design programs) once said the show “draws a parallel between the vehicles on display and the people who created them.” Reed is an Art Center grad (1969) and has had a significant career in transportation design working for Jeep, Toyota California, and Chrysler. He also designed the body for the 1939 Bugatti Type 64 chassis owned by the late collector Peter Mullin, which is now on display in the Design Center. 

The Type 64 (s/n 64002) was never finished in period by the factory due to Jean Bugatti’s death, so the Mullin Museum and Reed Design joined forces to fabricate and rebuild Bugatti’s final work of art. The “new” Bugatti was unveiled in 2012 at the Quail, A Motorsports Gathering. Mullin, who died in September 2023, maintained the Type 64’s completion was something he was immensely proud of. “The build of the Bugatti was an important project. We’ve dedicated much of our efforts at the museum to honor the Bugatti family and marque, but never have we done something of this scale. I cannot imagine a greater token of respect to the Bugatti family than to help finish Jean Bugatti’s beloved final masterpiece.”

On June 8 of this year, the Type 64 was displayed, along with its mahogany body buck, at Beyond Supersonic, which was both a celebration of the 20^th anniversary of the Art Center’s south campus and the inauguration of the state-of-the-art Mullin Transportation Design Center, which is the new home for the college’s prestigious program. 

The Mullin Center encompasses 31,000 square feet of specialized labs, classrooms, exhibition spaces, studios, and offices. The innovative space for learning was transformed from a supersonic wind tunnel operated from 1945 to 1960 by the California Institute of Technology as a testing facility for aerospace manufacturers. Its name is a fitting tribute to Peter and Merle Mullin, who have had a close relationship with Art Center for more than 20 years as both board trustee members and as key ambassadors, and whose generous donation helped make the building’s transformation possible.

At the June unveiling, dinner guests and VIPs had a sneak preview of the ultramodern space, where Art Center president and CEO Karen Hoffman spoke. “Here’s to the passion and appreciation Peter Mullin had for art, design, and innovation, and his distinct love for cars, and to all those in the Art Center community who brought Peter’s vision to reality. We cannot thank Peter and Merle Mullin enough for the incredible gift.”

Sandra Button, chairwoman of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance also heaped praise on the late collector. “Peter was a visionary with imagination needed to foresee a great future, the wisdom to plan for it, the skills and resources to begin to build it, and the connections and leadership to draw others into his plans.”

The “Wind Tunnel” building, as it was known, was always going to be perfect for the Transportation Design department because of its size, explained Rollin Homer, vice president of facilities and campus planning at the school. The shop space had to have provisions for large-scale sculptures and street access big enough for a double-decker bus. 

As part of the festivities, Beyond Supersonic also featured a panel discussion on AI and the future of car design, while outside on Raymond Avenue, more than 50 vehicles were on display at the third annual  Design Invitational Car Show; 37 of them were designed by Art Center alums.

“Embrace change,” Peter Mullin once said. “This is when we can most differentiate ourselves from others.” The big changes afoot at Art Center, largely thanks to Mullin himself, are a testament that philosophy.