Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Brutalist architectural structure at University of California, Irvine, US.

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts is a brutalist complex at University of California, Irvine, with multiple connected buildings defined by solid geometric forms and overhead canopies. The Contemporary Arts Center, added in 2011, provides extensive studio spaces, galleries, and performance venues for all artistic disciplines.

Architect William Pereira designed this educational facility in 1970 with modular elements reflecting the modernist movement of that era. The landscape was redesigned in 2005 by Maya Lin, incorporating an outdoor theater and native plantings.

The school is named after actress Claire Trevor (1910–2000), an Oscar winner and longtime Newport Beach resident who was stepmother to UCI benefactor Donald Bren. Its drama department hosted playwright William Inge in the 1970s, and Jerzy Grotowski, founder of the Polish Laboratory Theater, joined the faculty in 1983 and ran his Objective Drama project in fields and a barn south of campus.

The complex sits on the UC Irvine campus, with its buildings linked by raised, pillar-supported canopies, so most of the route between departments can be walked under cover. The 2005 Maya Lin landscape added an outdoor theater, fountains and LED lighting among native grasses and wildflowers. Check in advance which galleries and studios are open, since teaching spaces and venues host classes and private events.

The 2005 landscape redesign by Maya Lin added an outdoor theater, fountains and decorative LED lighting, and replaced conventional planting with native grasses and wildflowers. The 2011 Contemporary Arts Center cost $42.35 million and anchors the complex with studios and spaces for staging and producing art.