A village in the Park?

Posted on 05.08.2017 by Regisseur

The Moosilauke page has a section called “Building has begun.” Dartmouth News has a report with some recent photos showing the building taking shape. Trips this year will conclude at the McLane Family Lodge at the Skiway because the Ravine Lodge will not be ready.
Photos show the steel going up at the Hood Museum addition; see also the Hood’s updates on steel, progress, and the topping-out ceremony.
More than 20 years ago an architecture magazine published a small photo of Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill’s adaptation (cleverly invasive rehabilitation? creeping residential takeover?) of an old cement plant. The work has held a fascination ever since. Now Designboom has a comprehensive article. An amazing long-term project of simultaneously inhabiting a ruin and making a “ruin”; and don’t those trees on the roof remind one of J.M. Gandy’s fantasy illustrations of Soane’s Bank of England as a ruin?
A while back the absence of personality on the part of any of the new House Communities was noted. The apparently provisional names are still in use, but the communities do seem to be coming to life. West House (on the north side of Tuck Mall) has a blog with a bit of personality. For example: West House members are called Westians. The house has a Westletter and a team in the House volleyball league. West House has been using a logo that features an image of the great elm tree that stands between Fahey and Russell Sage. Incidentally, the deadline for House Community insignia design ideas was April 10. No word yet on results.
The Dartmouth says in an article that the college is thinking of developing “a kind of ‘village'” near the Bema in the College Park. One hopes that if it is built, it is sited at the north end or on the back side of the park instead of near the Bema.

The College Park has been eyed as a building site for decades, most recently as a site for a pre-recession SLI “Commons House.” There were some terrible ideas for building there in the Fifties and Sixties; and RipWoodSmith, after all, is an encroachment on the College Park, and Richardson was probably seen that way when it was built more than a century ago.
U.Va. artisit-in-residence Mark Dion has created a “cabin of curiosities” down the hill from the Architecture School. Interesting.
Heraldry news: Along with renaming Calhoun College for Grace Hopper, Yale has given Hopper College a new coat of arms (Calhoun notice, Yale Daily News). Yale also built two new residential colleges recently, Murray and Franklin. Rather than create stone Gothic buildings, the firm of Robert A.M. Stern has designed a Tudorbethan complex of brick. The two colleges have had complimentary coats of arms for a year or more (pdf). Finally, at Harvard, the sustainability website replaces the crimson of the school’s historic shield with a pea-soup green.
The Big Green Alert Blog has a seating diagram showing Fenway Park as it will be configured for the Dartmouth v. Brown football game there on November 10.
The Medal of Honor Foundation is running elaborate eight-page print ads, such as those in Fortune Magazine, that attribute this quotation to Abraham Lincoln: “Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.”

Really? That sure does not sound like something Lincoln would say. Of course he used the phrase “can long endure” with reference to a nation in the Gettysburg Address, but that is all the more reason to doubt that this quote, similar and yet different, is also from him. And does it even make sense? Isn’t the maintenance of the military, or the food supply, or the economic might of the nation a bit more important to the nation’s survival than its treatment of its “heroes”? (And, objectively speaking, are they really heroes if they are not honored?)

The Grand Army of the Republic, which should know a Lincoln quote when it sees it, printed an article in 1909 (actually it was the GAR Department of Iowa in its Journal of Proceedings of the Annual Encampment) that contained this passage:

A man once said, “The nation which does not honor its heroes, itself should die. The nation which does not teach its children to honor its heroes, itself will die.”

No Lincoln. Someone asked the “Queries and Answers” column in the New York Times Review of Books in 1959 for the source of this statement: “A nation which does not honor its heroes soon has no heroes to honor.” I am unable to find a response.
Here’s an idea: If Davis Varsity House needs to be moved out of the way (see this snippet of the latest master plan), why not move it to the intersection of Lebanon and Crosby Streets, a roundabout-worthy urban room that could be called Larson Square? Davis would occupy the parking lot next to the Black VAC, a spot that is very close to the current location of Davis, avoiding a lot of big trees; and it fits perfectly with an intersection that is already home to two other major institutional buildings by Jens Larson.
Stained glass, old and new.

Signature panel, window in sixth bay, north side of nave, Chartres.

Window in south transept, Sainte-Mère-Église.

——

[Update 08.10.2017: Broken links to Hood photos removed, Lincoln quotation image added.]

A new direction for the old Heating Plant

Posted on 26.05.2017 by Regisseur

Introduction
The college announced recently that it won’t upgrade its Heating Plant from No. 6 fuel oil to natural gas but will instead skip directly to a more sustainable source of energy.¹Charlotte Albright, “President Hanlon: Big Green Will Go (More) Green,” Dartmouth News (22 April 2017); Aimee Caruso, “Dartmouth Plans to Cut Oil Reliance,” Valley News (23 April 2017). That energy source is likely to be biomass.²Rob Wolfe, “New Dartmouth Task Force Will Help School Go Green,” Valley News (31 August 2016); Peter Charalambous, “College to finalize heating and energy proposals,” The Dartmouth (3 February 2017); Wolfe, “Fueling a College’s Future,” Valley News (27 April 2017). Because a biomass plant will require a lot of land on which to store piles of wood chips for combustion, the site of the current Heating Plant south of Wheelock Street will not do.³Wolfe, “Fueling a College’s Future.”

The new plant

The college is mum on where the new heating plant will be built, but Dewey Field must be at the top of the list of possibilities. Dewey Field is a large, open site on Route 10 (Lyme Road) that is currently used as a parking lot. Most of the field is located outside the 10-minute walking radius that is supposed to define the limits of the campus proper. The field also is close to the northern end of the tunnel network that currently carries steam lines to the various buildings. Some posts on this site have speculated about the idea of putting a new heating plant in Dewey Field: here, here, and especially here.

Dewey Field aerial at Google Maps.

(Unfortunately for the college, Dewey Field is also close to the mansions of Rope Ferry Road. Would it be possible to locate a biomass plant on the other side of Lyme Road, up by the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse? Or would the inefficiency created by the long distance be too great?)

Wherever the school sites the new plant, it should be encouraged to hire an outside architect with vision. The northern gateway to Hanover is not the place for a brown, metal-sided box. While the plant at Hotchkiss might not be right for Hanover, it stands next to a golf course. It was designed by Centerbrook with civil engineering by Milone & MacBroom, both firms that have worked at Dartmouth.

Since a heating plant is a simple industrial building, it can be covered in anything. Here is an amazing plant in the Netherlands that is clad in Delft tiles.

The old plant

The Heating Plant.

The old Heating Plant is one of the better examples of historic preservation at the college.

The ground level of the plant was built as a one-story Romanesque building in 1898 (Lamb & Rich, Architects). The second level was added by the college’s other important architectural firm, Larson & Wells, in 1923. In more recent history, each time the college has placed a new boiler in the building, it has dismantled a front facade bay and then built it back again — three times, in three different bays.

This website cannot stop talking about the importance of preserving the old exhaust stack, a fundamental Hanover landmark — it is an axial terminus for Lebanon Street — and an historic symbol of the traditional function of this neighborhood as Hanover’s energy district. Yale’s master plan devotes one map to showing “major vertical objects,”⁴Yale Master Plan pdf, 94. and this stack is one of the three most important vertical objects in Hanover. It makes no difference that the stack, built in 1958, is not “original” to the building, whatever that means for this evolving industrial structure. The stack is simply too important. It satisfies the 50-year threshold to be considered “historic” under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards anyway. (And it goes without saying that Harry A. Wells’s wonderfully adaptable 1916 Store House on Crosby Street, seen in Google Street View, also must be retained.)

The stack as seen from Lebanon Street.

The old plant in the future

Old power plants are reused all the time: see “Adaptive Reuse for Power Plants by Studio Gang and Adjaye Associates“⁵Aaron Wiener, “Adaptive Reuse for Power Plants by Studio Gang and Adjaye Associates,” Architect Magazine (1 December 2013). and the Bruner/Cott renovation of Amherst’s 1925 power house. The only natural move would be for the college to expand the Hood Museum into the empty plant building.

The old stack should become a victory column. Or the school could install a staircase and top the column with a Classical decorative element, such as the golden flaming urn of Wren’s 1677 Monument to the Great Fire of London (Wikipedia) or William Whitfield’s 2003 Paternoster Square column, seen in Google Street View (that one was built as a ventilation shaft, Wikipedia notes). Or imagine commissioning a statue or an abstract sculpture as a new signpost for the arts at Dartmouth — and for the college as a whole.

 [+]

References
↑1	Charlotte Albright, “President Hanlon: Big Green Will Go (More) Green,” Dartmouth News (22 April 2017); Aimee Caruso, “Dartmouth Plans to Cut Oil Reliance,” Valley News (23 April 2017).
↑2	Rob Wolfe, “New Dartmouth Task Force Will Help School Go Green,” Valley News (31 August 2016); Peter Charalambous, “College to finalize heating and energy proposals,” The Dartmouth (3 February 2017); Wolfe, “Fueling a College’s Future,” Valley News (27 April 2017).
↑3	Wolfe, “Fueling a College’s Future.”
↑4	Yale Master Plan pdf, 94.
↑5	Aaron Wiener, “Adaptive Reuse for Power Plants by Studio Gang and Adjaye Associates,” Architect Magazine (1 December 2013).

And if you want, they’ll bring it right up to your room

Posted on 17.05.2017 by Regisseur

By now you’ll have heard the news that Everything But Anchovies has closed (Valley News). The restaurant opened on Allen Street in 1979.

The October 2016 edition of the menu is still on line (pdf) and shows such familiar dishes as the Chicken Sandwich (on a Portuguese muffin, never my thing), the Pasta Alfredo, and the Tuscany Bread (did the delivery drivers really make the garlic bread while they were waiting to hop into an early-eighties Chevette with an armful of orders?). The Southwestern Burrito does not seem to be there any more; I went through a phase in 93X where I ordered one or two of those every week. Opening the white styrofoam clamshell would reveal a placid ocean of salsa, refried beans, and shredded lettuce. One had to fish around in the depths to pinpoint the location of the burrito.

The EBAs building is historic, designed by Larson & Wells and built by W.H. Trumbull in 1921.¹”Building and Construction News Section,” The American Contractor 42:14 (2 April 1921), 67. It was originally a garage, as these photos from Frank Barrett’s books show:

The second story and the brick facing are obviously much later. The image above is from Google Street View.

————–

 [+]

References
↑1	”Building and Construction News Section,” The American Contractor 42:14 (2 April 1921), 67.

Moosilauke Ravine Lodge construction continues

Posted on 21.04.2017 by Regisseur

David Kotz has some nice photos of the construction of the new Ravine Lodge.
The Rauner Library Blog has a post on the great railroad artist Howard Fogg ’38.
Spotted this flag at a Richmond, Virginia, area high school:

The star recalls the WWII Army Air Force insignia or the Chrysler Pentastar of the Eighties. Or it could be a battlefield map depicting a star fort surrounded by infantry units. The variety of bar widths is unusual. Flags of the World explains that it is “an official symbol of remembrance of September 11th” and that when it is hoisted vertically, the wide bars are meant to be seen as the Twin Towers.

It turns out that the flag’s designer owns a restaurant very close to the school, and that he has also designed a monument to the flag (in the shape of the flag, hoisted vertically) for a traffic island nearby. “Given that it is the home of the Freedom Flag, Henrico County is the natural choice for the location of the Freedom Flag Monument and Virginia 9/11 Memorial.”
Dartmouth Now seems to have changed its name to Dartmouth News.
Other college buildings based on Independence Hall are found at Brooklyn College:

and Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. (see the Google Earth 3D image).
Amherst has chosen as its mascot the Mammoth. The blurb explaining the Mammoth proposal notes that “The Beneski Museum of Natural History famously displays the skeleton of a Columbian mammoth, unearthed by Professor Frederick Brewster Loomis and brought to the College in 1925.” Museum specimens always provide good mascot options. Dartmouth’s museum displayed both a stuffed zebra and a set of curious elephant (i.e. mammoth) bones during the late eighteenth century.
The University of Virginia is celebrating its 200th anniversary and will feature bicentennial-logo zipper pulls on this year’s graduation gowns.
The city of Krakow has a new logo in the form of a city plan.
Last year the New York Times published interactive articles on mapping the shadows of New York and which existing Manhattan buildings could not be built today.
A Times obituary of March 13 noted the passing of the architectural historian and author of the Streetscapes column Christopher Gray. I was never able to meet him, but I was honored to have my site mentioned in his column on Lamb & Rich, and I enjoyed visiting the Office for Metropolitan History to do research in his compilations of 19th-century Times building permit notices (now they are in an online database provided by OMH, an amazing resource). The New Yorker ran an article about how Gray had left his skeleton to his school, St. Paul’s. What a character —

250th anniversary planning heats up

Posted on 11.03.2017 by Regisseur

One might be surprised at paucity of info out there on the demolition of a part of the Hood Museum and the construction of a large addition. The D has a demolition photo from the Green taken last fall. Curbed.com has a post with two post-demolition photos. (See also the set of fascinating photos of the architectural model at Radii Inc.)
Metropolis does have a story on the Hood. These are excerpts:

Dartmouth first began seriously mulling over the Hood’s fate in 2001, when it commissioned a speculative study by Rogers Marvel Architects. In 2005, it commissioned another by Machado Silvetti, the architectural firm that designed the Hood’s newest neighbor, the Black Family Visual Arts Center. Then in 2010, it commissioned yet another study, this time by Centerbrook, the practice that Charles Moore cofounded afterparticipatory process, which put users on a level playing field Moore Grover Harper. None created the visual presence — that new front door — that Dartmouth administrators were looking for.

The college began soliciting proposals from a broader pool of architects. A selection committee, including faculty and administrators, winnowed down a short list. In the end, four architects were selected to be interviewed. John Scherding, director of campus design and construction, vividly remembers the TWBTA proposal:

“All of us in the room felt it was brilliant. They were the only firm that suggested disconnecting the Hood from Wilson Hall, allowing Wilson to stand proudly on the corner of the Green. They were the only firm that showed a strong identifiable front entrance to the building, infilled the courtyard to provide program space, and really strengthened the north-south axis. It was a very powerful and simple concept that satisfied all of the needs.”

It thoughtfully preserves the gallery spaces (one exemplary detail: To preserve the windows along the staircase, and the dance of light along the walls, TWBTA will convert some of the windows into light boxes of stained glass) and will likely improve the museum experience in many fundamental ways.
The sestercentennial celebration website is up. The wordmark makes some interesting typeface choices. The unique “250,” which is set in a type that might be based on Bodoni, includes the most arresting element: a numeral “2” whose diagonal (neck?) is partially erased. The numeral “5” is partially hidden by the “2,” but there is no explanation for the missing bit of the “2.” Is it meant to look like the imperfect printing of an eighteenth-century pamphlet? It looks a bit like a stencil. In any case, the “Dartmouth” on the second line is set in the official Bembo (standard Bembo, not the Yale-only version), and the third line (“1769-2019”) is set in a sans serif font.
The sestercentennial will involve a year-long program of events (President’s message) created by a planning committee seeking to meet a number of goals.
Here’s a clever little film about an interesting story: Goudy & Syracuse: The Tale of a Typeface Found.
Interesting insignia decisions here: the midcentury Institute of International Studies in California was acquired a few years ago by Middlebury College (Wikipedia). In 2015, Middlebury “introduced a brand identity system that embraces the full breadth of its educational endeavors by placing the Middlebury name on each of its schools and programs” (MIIS page). And what a varied collection of institutions it is, including summer schools, conferences, and academic programs. The unified identity is based on a shield. I don’t know about the Midd shield: the globe looks like it’s from a different design language, from a 1960s U.N. brochure. The chapel touches the top of the shield. The hills, because they meet the edges of the shield, read as the sleeves of a gown or as curtains. Maybe this is because the eaves of the chapel are shown as angled bars floating free on the clouds.
The Institute is the only Middlebury institution that gets a truly distinctive shield, a variation “that replaces the Green Mountains of Vermont and Old Chapel with the historic Segal Building from the Monterey campus and the year of the Institute’s founding” (MIIS page).
A Kickstarter project for Design Canada, “The first documentary chronicling the history of Canadian graphic design and how it shaped a nation and its people.”
The New Yorker has has an article on lines of desire. Speaking of unplanned paths, the aerial photo of the vacated pipeline protest camp in the New York Times is remarkable.
McGraw Bagnoli Architects have published a brochure about the firm that details the five urban design projects planned by William Rawn Associates during the early 2000s. This is fascinating. It will be interesting to see whether the school ever completes the Sargent Block project and what plan it follows.
Smith & Vansant have photos of some of the houses the firm has renovated for the college, including Unity House and Thayer Lodge, both on South Park Street, 26 East Wheelock, 19 South Park, and the Victorian professor’s house of the North Park House community.
Architect Vital Albuquerque (again, great name) < ahref="http://rwu.edu/academics/schools-colleges/saahp/portfolios/alumni/vital-albuquerque-class-01">presents more unreleased renderings of the unbuilt NCAC, including a remarkable photo of a model of the project.
Engelberth Construction has its page for the West Stand Replacement up.
At the last board meeting,

Hanlon outlined goals to renovate a number of aging buildings, and the board approved funds to proceed with a schematic design for the renovation of Dana Hall, the former home of the biomedical library located at the north end of campus, to facilitate the expansion and improvement of faculty office spaces.

The board also approved a capital budget of $30 million to fund a number of projects, including the Morton Hall renovation and planning and feasibility studies of the abatement and demolition of Gilman Hall; renovations to Reed Hall and Thornton Hall; and undergraduate housing expansion and renewal.
A Moosilauke update with photos by Eli Burakian. The building has an interesting mix of construction techniques. Some of those “character” timbers are fantastic.
Some of the photos of the federal building that houses the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, such as the one in this New York Times story from February 9, show the elaborate metal lanterns flanking the entrance of the 1905 building. The lanterns might be familiar: architect James Knox Taylor, then Supervising Architect of the Treasury, modeled them on the torch-holders of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence of 1489 (GSA page on the Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building). The Strozzi torch-holders also inspired Charles Rich in his design for Parkhurst Hall (1913).
Drove past Nervi’s SCOPE arena in Norfolk, Va. (1971-72) last weekend and admired the ribs that form the roof of this entrance pavilion (Google Street View):

A statue of Fred Harris? And other tidbits

Posted on 11.02.2017 by Regisseur

Sasaki Associates now has a page for its House Centers “pilot” program. This SCUP article has a “housing swarm” image that Sasaki created for Dartmouth. A Valley News article states that the college “estimated it will cost $12.8 million to build professors’ residences and temporary centers for Dartmouth’s Undergraduate House Communities program.” But those have already been built. Presumably that estimate refers to completed construction. Any future, permanent versions of those buildings will cost a lot more than $13 million.
BBB has updated its page on the campus master plan to include a large version of that plan, an image of the West End plan (Green to Blue), and — this is new — a schematic perspective rendering of the cemetery bridge, which we can call Fletcher Viaduct.
This Valley News article notes Kendal’s interest in building to the south on Rivercrest land and leaving the Chieftain land for recreation (rowing).
Sir John Soane’s Museum in London has a computer model of the museum on line.
The architects have completed a design for the Irving Institute (Valley News).
The Dartmouth has an article on the success of the Town fence in front of Collis in reducing jaywalking.
The Hood has a brochure on public art on campus. The Class of 1965 has proposed to erect a statue of DOC founder Fred Harris in front of Robinson Hall. The campus architecture committee is considering the idea, according to the ’65 newsletter.
A bit of biography on David Hooke, who’s at the center of the new Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.
Dartmouth will play Brown at football in Fenway Park on November 10, Big Green Alert reports. Wild.
The Rauner Library Blog has a post about the Charter.
Kresge Library in Fairchild has turned 40 years old.
This Times editorial contains footnotes. Kinda neat, but also showy: if footnotes are needed here, why not everywhere? Or if the paper is to be relied on generally, why include notes here?
Big Green Alert points out the new use of the Lone Pine logo by the Co-Op. First impression? The trad typeface clashes with the fat Modernism of the pine. The use of the athletics nickname BIG GREEN in this seal-like, college-wide institutional device is also weird.
A Proliferation of Canes. Photos of the most recent Commencement show students carrying many strange, new-ish canes, most presumably representing senior societies. They feature a snake wrapped around a Native American arrow; a bearded old man; the domed main body of Shattuck Observatory (clever!); a snake clutching an apple in its mouth; a huge phoenix (for Phoenix, obviously — is that cast resin or something?); a tail, perhaps belonging to a whale?; and a three-dimensional stylization of the stylized Lone Pine symbol (also a metal globe).
Two interesting new-ish concepts: literary geography and forensic architecture.

Image of new Ledyard; selecting Ravine Lodge timbers

Posted on 28.11.2016 by Regisseur

The Moosilauke project is beginning. Wow. See the aerial of timber framing. And see the unique, oddly-shaped timbers destined to become crucks and idiosyncratic railings and so on. Much of timber, the update states, was harvested under the direction of the College Forester from college lands on Trescott Road, off Grasse Road in Hanover.
The project page for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement has a depiction of the future building. Taking advantage of the slope like a Pennsylvania bank barn, the clubhouse will stand three stories high.
The Rauner Library blog has a post on Dartmouth Night telegrams and a post on the Old Pine, particularly the fragment of the pine kept in the archives.
A presentation (pdf) from the summer shows possible bike lanes connecting Hanover and DHMC.
Speaking of Schinkel (in a post of two months ago), Adobe has produced a time-lapse video of Mike Campau recreating Schinkel’s lost painting Cathedral Towering Over a Town using thousands of bits of stock photos.
The 2015 Jones Media Center interior renovation in Berry Library was designed by Jones Architecture and built by North Branch. Jones also designed the DartmouthX Studio around the same time. It occupies the far east end of Berry.
What if the college, finding itself expanding onto the south end of the golf course, simply added another nine holes to the east (by the Rugby Clubhouse) and to the north (behind the Fire Department, even into the Fletcher Circle neighborhood)? The Times had an article on swapping the front and back nine on a golf course.
Microsoft’s Bing has its Streetside view (like Google Street View), and the service has come to Hanover. Are its photos taken at shorter increments than Google’s? It does seem easier to navigate, but it offers less coverage nationally and in Hanover. The photos seem less sharp. The aerial and bird’s eye views are superior to Google’s.
Some of the best photos yet of the DEN space in 4 Currier (project page) are in the Truex Cullins blog.
If the Dartmouth Cup (see the post from the summer) does not fill the role of a mace, the college’s eagle feather staff, featured in Dartmouth Now, surely could.
Dean of Libraries Jeffrey Horrell retired in June.
The Valley News reports that the owners of the Salt Hill Pub have bought the Seven Barrel Brewery in West Leb and that the college has sold its interest in Centerra Marketplace, the suburban mall partway to the hospital that houses a Co-Op Food Store location.

Co-Op Food Store in Centerra

———

11.28.2016 update: DEN project page link added.

Ledyard Canoe Club demo ahead

Posted on 21.11.2016 by Regisseur

A campus construction update has a few details on the soccer pavilion expansion out at Burnham Field.
The Valley News reports that the new Dartmouth Coach bus station is opening in Lebanon.
An architect has been named for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement. The historic clubhouse will be demolished and a new building built in its place by Charney Architects of New Haven.
A newsletter last month described the installation of a solar array at ground level on Berry Row.
The Moosilauke Ravine Lodge replacement (project page) is going ahead, and one can’t help but worry about the success of its central feature, the great stone fireplace-staircase (HearthStair?). Will it be plausible as a work of masonry, a little bit of Machu Picchu in the White Mountains? Or will it read as Formstone, with no visible means of support?
An item on memorializing the Lodge mentions some interesting digital projects and quotes OPO Director Dan Nelson: “Memorabilia will be saved, safely stored, and reinstalled; interior log elements will be reused; timbers that can’t be reused in construction will be sawn into planks for wall paneling.”
“Work is underway … planning for future renovation of the Hopkins Center” (news release; see also the story in The D).
“Also in the future is consideration of the north end of campus, focusing on the demolition of Gilman Hall — and creation of green space in its place” (The D). Let’s hope that this is a way of saying the Gilman site will not become a parking lot.
“— coupled with the complete renovation of Dana Hall for faculty use” (The D). Interesting — wasn’t the library moved out because Dana was to be demolished? Is that move now looking like a mistake, or would the renovation have required the building to be emptied anyway? Whatever the case, it’s good to hear that Dana is being renovated. It seems like an underappreciated building that might have some merit to it, some endearing features. The small size and the scale of the building are appealing.
The Rauner Blog has a post on the Surveyor General of the His Majesty’s Woods during the 1740s. It is worth noting that John Wentworth later became Surveyor General, and Eleazar Wheelock was accused of illegally harvesting pines marked with the King’s broad arrow.
Dartmouth is building a timber-framed pavilion at the Organic Farm to shelter a wood-fired pizza oven (Planning Board minutes 6 September 2016 pdf).
Dartmouth Engineer Magazine has a long article on the Williamson Translational Research Building by The Map Thief author Michael Blanding.
The D has an article about the end of football game broadcasts on campus radio; this year the football team switched to 94.5 ESPN. Dartmouth licensed athletic multimedia rights to Learfield Sports late last year. Learfield created Big Green Sports Properties to handle “all corporate sponsorship endeavors for the Big Green, including venue signage, promotions, radio advertising and ads on DartmouthSports.com” (new general manager announcement).
Mad River Glen ski area in Vermont is the only ski area on the National Register (history, NR nomination form pdf).

Now is the time for heraldry

Posted on 22.09.2016 by Regisseur

ORL has opened a “House Insignia Design” search.

Although the webpage acknowledges that the Houses “do not have to be represented as shields or coats of arms,” the relevant tradition is that of heraldry, and the four house systems that are provided as examples (those of Rice, Harvard, Yale, and SMU) are dominated by shields.

Here are some rough sketches, with speculative blazons. The arbitrary House names assigned by ORL are probably only temporary and are not referenced in the arms. Comments and suggestions are welcome; feel free to submit any of these to ORL without attribution:

	Allen House.
	Constituent buildings: Gile, Streeter, and Lord Halls. Associations: Tuck Mall, the Gold Coast, the Hitchcock Estate, the Cemetery, architect Jens Larson’s ocular windows and connecting arcades. Possible blazon: Gules three arches conjoined Or in base two barrulets Argent.
	East Wheelock House.
	Constituent buildings: Andres, Zimmerman, Morton, and McCulloch Halls. Associations: Dr. Frost’s House, Judge Parker, the “New Dorms,” the ur-community, the postmodern entry pyramid. Possible blazon: Sable a pyramid proper in base two barrulets Argent.
	North Park House.
	Constituent buildings: Ripley, Woodward, and Smith Halls. Associations: College Park, the Bema, the Old Pine or Lone Pine, the stump, the Grotto, early graduates and original college tutors Ripley, Woodward, and Smith. Possible blazon: Azure a tree stump erased in base two barrulets all Argent.
	School House.
	Constituent buildings: Massachusetts Row and Hitchcock Hall. Associations: Mass Row (“Mass Rowhouse”), a temple front, Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts flag (whose reverse apparently displayed a green pine tree on a blue field from 1908 to 1971). Possible blazon: Azure a pine tree in base two barrulets all Argent.
	South House.
	Constituent buildings: Topliff and New Hampshire Halls and the Lodge. Associations: Hallgarten (“Hellgate”), the New Hampshire College of Agriculture & the Mechanic Arts, the State College, present-day UNH (whose colors are blue and white), Aggies, father of NHC in Hanover Ezekiel Dimond, the State Farm (part of which is now occupied by the football field and baseball diamond), the plow. Possible blazon: Sable a lozenge in base two barrulets all Argent.
	West House.
	Constituent buildings: Butterfield, Russell Sage, Fahey, and McLane Halls. Associations: The mansion and estate of wealthy hotelier, philanthropist, and amateur archeologist Hiram Hitchcock, the landscaped auto road of Tuck Drive, a.k.a. Webster’s Vale, Eleazar Wheelock’s first college site (behind Sage). Possible blazon: Purpure a wheel in base two barrulets all Argent.

Summertomb

Posted on 20.09.2016 by Regisseur

Some tombs or tomblike buildings spotted during July and August. Any of these would make a fine model for a senior society hall:

Above: South and east facades, Getty Tomb, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois (Louis Sullivan, 1890).

Above: Entrance detail, Getty Tomb.

Above: South facade, Neue Wache (New Guardhouse), Unter den Linden, Berlin, Germany (Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1816).

Above: West facade, Neue Wache (view to south).

Above: Interior, Neue Wache (view to northwest).

Above: North and west facades, Holmes Mausoleum, Graceland Cemetery (Charles B. Blake Company, 1934).

Above: West facade, Ryerson Tomb, Graceland Cemetery (Sullivan, 1889).

Above: South facade, Mausoleum (of Queen Luise of Prussia), Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin (Schinkel, 1810).

Above: South facade, Mausoleum, Charlottenburg.

Above: South facade, Lehmann Mausoleum, Graceland Cemetery (Mundie & Jensen, 1919).

Breweries, Fullington Farm demo, suspension railways, etc.

Posted on 18.09.2016 by Regisseur

The Valley News reports that the Norwich Historic Preservation Commission was named the Commission of the Year by the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions.
Prolific N.H. beer blogger Adam Chandler posts a short but positive review of a new brewery in WRJ, the River Roost. It’s less than a quarter-mile down South Main from the original Catamount Brewery, sadly missed. (Some friends and I built a website for Catamount as a class project in the Spring of 1995, but I don’t think we ever showed it to the company. And it’s good to see the venerable Seven Barrel Brewery still going; we ate there five times the first week it was open.)
It is interesting that the new plaque at Memorial Field (Flickr photo), which kinda quotes Richard Hovey’s line “The hill-winds know their name,” honors alums who: (a) [have] “served,” (b) “are serving,” or (c) “will serve their country.” Although it’s not clear why “have served” is not sufficient to cover everyone, especially since the only names known to the hill winds are those of alums who have striven, fought, and died, the implicit inclusion of international students in their home countries is a nice touch. (It almost reminds one of the memorial at New College, Oxford, to the German members who died in WWI; Trinity College, Oxford, created its own memorial listing the German and Austrian members who gave their lives “for their country” in that war just last year.)
ORL (as of last spring?) is now organizing its dorm info pages according to House Communities instead of the old clusters. Thus we have West true to purple, South in black, etc. Each page presents one of the nice Burakian aerials.

There are still apparently no authentic pages by the House members themselves, not even rogue pages — although the Houses do have members. Let’s get with it, people!
The Valley News reported on Dartmouth’s demolition of the Fullington Farmhouse north of town. Here’s how it looked in context (view south toward town):
Sheldon Pennoyer Architects, PLLC of Concord designed the new Dartmouth Coach bus terminal in Lebanon, on the site of the Cadillac dealership on Labombard Road. Construction is by North Branch. See also the Valley News.
Beekeeping at the Orgo Farm is the subject of a news item.
The Dartmouth has a story on a recent celebration of the history of Dartmouth Broadcasting.
Courtyard Café employees will be driving a new food truck “to support programs and activities associated with the House systems” according to the Campus Services newsletter (pdf). The truck will accept only DBA payments (sounds good) and will be available only on nights other than Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (??).
The medical and other waste that the college and hospital buried at Rennie Farm years ago continues to cause problems (Valley News overview, cleanup announcement).
Neighbors continue to object to the plans for an athletic fieldhouse behind Thompson Arena. As reported by the Valley News, neighbors withdrew their zoning challenge during June but the controversy continues.
Back in 2009 Dartmouth Engineer Magazine published an interesting article called “Thayer in the Landscape” that depicted engineering projects by alumni around the world.
According to the Mac website Six Colors, the least popular emoji depicts a suspension railway. While passing through Wuppertal, Germany, this summer, I observed that city’s suspension railway, and boy is it fantastic. Wuppertal is a long city in the valley of the winding Wupper River, and the route of the elevated railway is established by the river itself rather than by the street network. The track is hung beneath pairs of great 19th-century metal legs that straddle the river. Here is a Street View showing the track along the river:

Here is a view with a train coming along the river:

The stations (old and new) also must straddle the river and essentially take the form of bridges.

———

[Update 09.18.2016: Tuck School expansion item removed for use in future post.]

Two hundred years ago this morning

Posted on 28.08.2016 by Regisseur

Two hundred years ago this morning:

Resolved, that we the Trustees of Dartmouth College do not accept the provisions of an act of the legislature of New Hampshire approved June 27, 1816, entitled “An Act to amend the Charter and enlarge and improve the Corporation of Dartmouth College,” but do hereby expressly refuse to act under the same.¹Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, Resolution (28 August 1816), quoted in John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 1815-1909 (Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1913), 95-96.

——

 [+]

References
↑1	Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, Resolution (28 August 1816), quoted in John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 1815-1909 (Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1913), 95-96.

New faculty houses, etc.

Posted on 11.08.2016 by Regisseur

Fascinating and unexpected historic New Hampshire mica mine for sale: Eagle Tribune.
Bora (formerly Boora) Architects have put up a couple new images and larger versions of their old ones for the Hopkins Center expansion. The new porte-cochere, which would tear down Harrison’s stone wall and put up a transparent box with a glass “curtain” wall, is striking for the literalism of its opening-up of the Hop. The new reference to the project as “unbuilt” is troubling.
The Valley News reports on a Cambodian food truck that serves Hanover.
Big Green Alert reports on the plaque honoring Kathy Slattery Phillips in the new press box at Memorial Field.
Dartmouth Now reports that the board of trustees, at its Commencement meeting,

affirmed plans to proceed with the renovation and expansion of the Hood Museum of Art. The trustees also voted to approve $10 million for construction of the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and $22 million to build a new indoor athletics practice facility. Each of these projects will be funded through private gifts to Dartmouth.
One of the goals of the current Thayer School fundraising campaign (Dartmouth Now):

Construct a 180,000-square-foot building, which will nearly double the school’s total floor space. The building, to be located directly south of the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center, will provide more space for classroom teaching and experiential learning, with an emphasis on Thayer’s growing efforts in design and research priorities in energy technology and engineering-in-medicine.
The Town of Orford celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding with a reading of its charter on the East Common (Here in Hanover).
The Rauner Library Blog reports on a time capsule from 1977 that contained a can of Miller High Life. The can was kept in the archives but had to be drained recently.
Thanks to the U.Va. School of Architecture for including the Campus Guide in its 2016 Alumni Exhibit, on university living-learning environments.
The Valley News has a story on the Hartford Christian Camp. It sounds like a lovely place, and the kind of summertime experience that was common a century ago. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a similar camp has been incorporated into the city and its surviving cottages have become year-round houses:
U.Va. has a collection of campus then/now photos.
The Dartmouth has an article on the school’s architecture studio.
Big Green Alert reports on the new FieldTurf at Memorial Field.
Volunteers in Meriden are digitizing the E.H. Baynes slide archive, the Valley News reports. Baynes was the conservationist and traveling lecturer who, at a talk in Webster Hall during the early 1900s, suggested that Dartmouth students raise money to save the bison and adopt the animal as their mascot.
Green Building Advisor has a detailed look at the construction of the four new modular houses being installed for faculty as part of the “house communities” plan. The school has a video update on the construction. Big Green Alert has earlier and later photos of the tensile “community” building that now stands by Davis Varsity House.
It is common these days for sportswear companies to design team uniforms, logos, and mascots. For the British team at the 2016 Olympics, Adidas worked with both the College of Arms (England) and the Lord Lyon King of Arms (Scotland) to create a coat of arms that would be conferred by a dual grant (College of Arms news).

The Black VAC

Posted on 07.08.2016 by Regisseur

Love the broad sidewalk on the Lebanon Street side. It would be even better with some ground-level shops, but this is a good start.

This is the largest of the famous rust stains, and the only one that really detracted from the building’s appearance last summer. The concrete wall obviously shouldn’t have been pulled out far enough to catch the runoff from the Norwegian slate, that’s all. There is no point in trying to keep up with cleaning it as long as the stone still contains iron oxide. Instead the school should (1) install a drip rail to channel the runoff, (2) cast a little Modernist concrete gargoyle for this spot, or (3) embrace the stain and commission an artist to incorporate it into an evolving work of art, perhaps by using stains in other colors.

That exterior board-formed concrete wall continues inside the building.

A detailed article from structural engineering firm Lemessurier (pdf) on the construction of the VAC contains these interesting tidbits:

Machado and Silvetti Associates designed a basement in the building that was conveniently situated directly atop the highest ridge of the bedrock spine. Although the basement required leveling of appreciable regions of bedrock, this geometry of the building allowed for a stable, flat bearing surface in the central portion of the structure.

To increase the overall efficiency of the foundation placement, the contractor suggested that larger pits be dug by hand while some shafts continued to be slowly drilled elsewhere on-site. The proposed hand digging involved timber lagging to support the excavation. A single worker shoveled soil into a bucket by hand, and the bucket was then lifted from the pit base to the surface. Ironically, a simple technique used to excavate mine shafts in Thoreau’s era would become critical to the success of a state-ofthe-art 21st-century construction project. So atypical was this type of construction that the workers and engineers present at the site came to refer to the work as 1850s foundations.

The curved wood panel ceiling is the only surface in the building not rectilinear in its expression. The art forum is otherwise bound by straight lines that are vertical, horizontal, and even diagonal as the grand staircase descends from the upper levels. The columns, however, are set away from the main forum to allow an unimpeded view of the central space as the visitor walks the hallways between offices and studios. The absence of columns in the immediate vicinity necessitates serially cantilevering floor framing—in other words, cantilevers off cantilevers off cantilevers—extending into the forum space and supporting loads by means other than direct column support.

More on the viaduct

Posted on 19.05.2016 by Regisseur

This extension of Hanover’s historic street grid will carry Cemetery Lane across the Dartmouth Cemetery.

Generally

It is hard to resist calling it a bridge “to Thayer School.” If a Thayer parking deck ever goes in, visitors to campus will park there, and so this really will be a bridge “to the college.” The Thayer end of the viaduct will be the gateway to the college:

One could even imagine a brick tower, or a towering gate, at that spot, serving as both an entranceway and a landmark:

Old Town bridge tower, Prague, Meacham photo

Old Town bridge tower, Charles Bridge, Prague

Grove Street Cemetery gate, New Haven, Meacham photo

Grove Street Cemetery gate, New Haven, Ct.

The Egyptian mode would be especially appropriate here, since the viaduct crosses a cemetery and Dartmouth has a sort of Egyptian thing going on (Sphinx, the Brace Commons pyramid, Amarna). The college motto would be a good thing to put above the gateway, because the visitor will be entering a wilderness of sorts, up in the trees.

Then this will be the new welcome for visitors after they come through the cemetery:

Not bad, but obviously a back entrance at the moment.

The footings

The footings will probably be minimalist, even spidery, to avoid landing in graves. (Incidentally, do they have a plan for what to do when they find unmarked graves?)

If the footings are bulked up and built of masonry, they could really announce themselves and interact with existing monuments (see this article on graves under the bridge at Montmartre in Paris for an idea). The bridge piers could even be rendered as obelisks and given plaques or inscriptions — as cenotaphs — although that would become hokey very quickly.

The structure

The deck should be wide enough for bicyclists and pedestrians to pass. There might be a need for rules about bikes.

The designers could do a nice elegant truss, not just a set of steel girders like Bartlett Hall’s rear stair (Street View).
Could the school get a set of beautiful green trusses from a historic rail or highway bridge that is being replaced somewhere in the Northeast? The trusses could be placed end-to-end and the decks hung off the sides; this could be a little museum of engineering.

Or the viaduct could refer to the ski jump, built by the Boston Bridge Company: see this simple profile drawing, in a Rauner Blog post on the ski jump.

This does not seem like the place to use a state-park style boardwalk bridge. The site seems to demand something permanent and monumental in form if not in scale. It would be better to err on the side of the depressing than the cheerful.

————-

[Update 08.06.2016: It turns out that Robert Fletcher, who singlehandedly brought Gen. Thayer’s idea for a school into being (Lee Michaelides, “In the Beginning,” Dartmouth Engineer Magazine), is buried in the Cemetery.]

Every tub on its own bottom

Posted on 15.05.2016 by Regisseur

A neat color view of Dartmouth Row, probably from the 1850s, appeared on Antiques Roadshow.

This quotation about Dartmouth is intriguing:

Although on the surface it might sound heretical, the institution is looking to reduce future building as much as possible. Conscious of the escalating costs of higher education, the college’s senior administration has instituted a program that requires academic departments to pay rent, essentially to make them more conscious of space costs and usage efficiencies. “The greenest building is the one that is never built,” [Director of Campus Design & Construction John] Scherding says.¹Russ Klettke, “The High Performance Trail,” American Builders Quarterly (2016).

So will rents rise in the most desirable buildings as departments compete for space? Will a wealthy department be allowed to build itself a new building if it can afford it?

At one point, the Wilson Architects design for the new Thayer/CS building envisioned a structure of 150,000 sf and a parking garage holding 400 cars (a LinkedIn profile). The Dartmouth has an article on the proposed parking structure, which the college now seems to be emphasizing less.

Remember the North Campus Academic Center? Back in 2014, CFO Rick Mills explained that the project was on hold:

“We’re actually taking this year — both capitalizing some of the expenses that were incurred [and] some implementation expenses that were utility relocation and other things. … We’re also writing down some of the planning expenses, because as originally conceived, it’s not moving forward in that capacity.” According to Mills, completely new plans for that site are “going through a completely new process of evaluation” that the Dean of Faculty is discussing with President Hanlon and the Board of Trustees. The plans will have to take into account “the external science funding environment for what we can expect from NIH and other places [and] that the Williamson Translational Research building is under way …”²Rick Mills, interviewed by Charles C.W. Jang, “Dart Kapital,” The Dartmouth Review (1 June 2014) (brackets and ellipses original).

There are plenty of good reasons not to build the large Kim-era design, but with Gilman and Kresge now boarded up and the medical library occupying temporary quarters in a former nursing school dormitory, it would seem that something needs to be built.

Here’s an interesting Bldgblog post on the ghost streets of Los Angeles.

The Valley News covers the installation of a plaque at Harvard honoring slaves there. Although the idea is not new (see U.Va.) and the wording might be a bit awkward (in an expectedly academic way — “worked here as enslaved persons”), it seems like a good idea. Where would such a plaque be appropriate at Dartmouth? Eleazar Wheelock’s house would be a good place, since Wheelock was the chief slaveowner in early Hanover. The writers would have to be careful about using the word “here” or the phrase “on this site,” since the house was in a different location when slaves worked there. And the house is no longer owned by the college anyway, so the new owner would have to favor the idea.

A Google Street View image of the rear of the Boss Tennis Center, as seen from the adjoining neighborhood:

The fieldhouse proposed for the site next door (Bing aerial) is not popular with the neighbors (The Dartmouth). Here is the latest from the April 5 Planning Board meeting (pdf):

Submission of Application for Site Plan Review by the Trustees of Dartmouth College to construct a 69,860 sf indoor practice facility on the “sunken garden” site, east of Boss Tennis Center, 4 Summer Court, Tax Map 34, Lot 102, in the “I” zoning district. The applicant has requested that consideration of this proposal be postponed until May 3. There is concern about the proposed conditions of approval regarding the adequacy of the town stormwater system to handle the proposed stormwater flows. More research about the drainage in that section of Hanover will be done.

From the same agenda item:

In addition, the College has submitted another site plan review application for an expansion of the soccer pavilion at Burham Field. Both the indoor practice facility and the soccer pavilion projects rely on the eastern portion of Thompson Parking Lot for material laydown, construction trailers, contractor parking, porta-potties, etc., as well as Summer Street for the sole construction access for both sites. Abutters to the indoor practice facility project were contacted by the College to apprise them of the request for continuance.

The original “sports pavilion,” designed by Freeman French Freeman, Inc., has an appealing scale; one wonders how it will be expanded. Let’s hope that 19th-century suburban metro station feeling isn’t erased from the building’s south facade. (And will Dartmouth’s most notable unnamed building finally be named in honor of someone or something?)

“Dartmouth Dining Services (DDS) is also involved in the MDF effort by establishing a C-store (mini convenience store) in each of the house centers. The C-store will be fashioned after those in Goldstein Hall and in East Wheelock. DDS is also rolling out a new senior apartment meal plan for undergraduate students who will live in campus apartments” (“Campus Services Supports Moving Dartmouth Forward,” Behind the Green (2 March 2016), 2 pdf).

A contest involving drawings of the Frost Sculpture in College Park.

A story in the Valley News reports that a developer is buying hundreds of acres near the Joseph Smith Memorial for an ideal city. The NewVistas Foundation website proposes “a settlement comprised of 50 diamond-shaped communities of 15,000 to 20,000 people each, which are located adjacent to each other.” The standard urban building form includes an underground “podway,” a bit like the Disney “utilidor,” and the shopping is to be done in podway-level malls, protected from the elements…

—————————-

 [+]

References
↑1	Russ Klettke, “The High Performance Trail,” American Builders Quarterly (2016).
↑2	Rick Mills, interviewed by Charles C.W. Jang, “Dart Kapital,” The Dartmouth Review (1 June 2014) (brackets and ellipses original).

“Venomous” liquors and school rules

Posted on 13.05.2016 by Regisseur

Georgia’s Governor recently explained his veto of a “campus carry” bill in part by quoting the University of Virginia:

Perhaps the most enlightening evidence of the historical significance of prohibiting weapons on a college campus is found in the minutes of October 4, 1824, Board of Visitors of the newly created University of Virginia. Present for that meeting were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, along with four other members. In that meeting of the Board of Visitors, detailed rules were set forth for the operation of the University which would open several months later. Under the rules relating to the conduct of students, it provided that “No student shall, within the precincts of the University, introduce, keep or use any spirituous or venomous liquors, keep or use weapons or arms of any kind…”¹Governor Nathan Deal, veto statement for HB 859 (2016), viewed 4 May 2016, pdf.

The 1824 Visitors, of course, were referring to “vinous” liquors, i.e. wines. A “venomous” liquor is probably something that involves rattlesnakes and is distilled by Texans. The full paragraph of the Visitors’ minutes reads:

No Student shall, within the precincts of the University, introduce, keep or use any spirituous or vinous liquors, keep or use weapons or arms of any kind, or gunpowder, keep a servant, horse or dog, appear in school with a stick, or any weapon, nor, while in school, be covered without permission of the Professor, nor use tobacco by smoking or chewing, on pain of any of the minor punishments at the discretion of the Faculty, or of the board of Censors, approved by the Faculty.²University of Virginia Board of Visitors, Meeting Minutes (4 October 1824), (viewed 4 May 2016). Other statements, such as a rule about “ardent spirits or wine mixed or unmixed,” confirm that the Visitors are talking about wine.

In addition to banning the possession of arms, the rules also ban the firing of a gun or pistol within the precincts of the University. Those particular meeting minutes contain no prohibition against foot-ball or playing ball, by the way.

Finally, the minor punishments are interesting:

[T]he Minor punishments shall be Restraint within those Precincts, within their own chamber, or in diet; Reproof, by a Professor privately, or in presence of the school of the offender, or of all the schools, a seat of degradation in his school room of longer or shorter duration, Removal to a lower class, Dismission from the schoolroom for the day, imposition of a task, and insubordination to these sentences shall be deemed & punished as Contumacy.³U.Va. Meeting Minutes. “Diet” refers to dining.