Packard Humanities Institute Film Vault Santa Clarita, California

Through the Packard Humanities Institute (which provided the funding for the $250 million Library of Congress media preservation center in Culpeper, Virginia) David W. Packard built another preservation campus and film vault, on the west coast, just north of Los Angeles. The facility, next to Interstate 5, in Santa Clarita, opened in 2014, and, from the outside, resembles the colonnaded stoa found in ancient Grecian towns. The interior is modeled after a 15^th century Florentine monastery. Also referred to the UCLA Film and Television Archives, two film vaults are located in an adjacent structure, partially underground, as at Culpeper. Underground storage is considered optimal for film storage, especially the old nitrate films which are unstable and prone to combustion.