The Pasadena Conservatory of Music is an independent community music school that has served more than 1,000 students each year for over twenty-five years. In order to accommodate growing enrollment, the school moved to its current location in 2001, a 17,000-square-foot, two-story Italian Revival courtyard structure that was built in 1929. Designed by noted local architects Frederick Hunt Kennedy and Glenn Elwood Smith, the two original buildings had been compromised by a series of remodels throughout the years.

The Moule & Polyzoides design restores the integrity of the buildings’ original character while converting the two existing structures into a recital hall, updated classrooms, studios, administrative offices and new performance spaces inside and out. Consideration was paid to create a clearer sense of arrival, vehicular and pedestrian circulation and drop-off, while the development of various spaces make the campus more legible, coherent and interconnected. An outdoor performance courtyard replaces a little-used outdoor space located between the two original structures, around which an additional 5,000 square feet of new classroom space and studios were created.