COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, located at 500 1st Street, was a cultural museum and education center dedicated to the discovery, understanding, and celebration of wine, food and the arts in American culture. Robert Mondavi and his wife Margrit Biever Mondavi, along with support from the University of California at Davis, the Cornell University School of Restaurant and Hotel Administration, and the American Institute of Wine & Food, opened the non-profit center in November 2001. In November 2008, COPIA "temporarily" closed with approximately $80 million in debt and was put up for sale in 2009.
COPIA, which was designed by Polshek Partnership Architects and Fong & Chan, included 13,000 square feet of gallery space for exhibitions of art, culinary history and science; a 260 raked-seat theater for films and lectures; a rare-books library; classrooms with audio-visual capabilities; a 74-seat demonstration kitchen forum; a gourmet dining room named for honorary trustee Julia Child, which featured a dramatic open finishing kitchen; a tasting table with an expansive selection of wines from across the United States; a 700-seat outdoor concert terrace; a café; a museum gift shop; and three and one-half acres of landscaped organic edible gardens for hands-on learning about soils, farming and viticulture.
Loading contexts...
