Vermont windows

  • An update of the “North Block” golf course development idea: Take a look at the Perkins + Will plan for the Poplar Point Development In Washington, D.C. Naturally Dartmouth wouldn’t need this density or scale, but it could learn from the extension of the existing street grid to form irregular quadrangular blocks; the treatment of the edge condition (the Anacostia River); and the accommodation of streams flowing through the site.

  • An update of the Hop expansion post: Of course! The new theater and entrance facade represent the final realization of Larson’s old 1940s Hop designs. In this post, a still image from a college video shows how Larson wanted to put a theater and a major entrance to the Hopkins Center on what was then College Street. And the Dartmouth has an article on the Boora project.

  • I did not learn until recently that this memorable window, visible on the way to Hanover from West Leb, is called a “Vermont window” or a “witch window” (Wikipedia):


  • Dartmouth has been phasing out the “@alum.dartmouth.org” accounts and assigning everyone, past and present, an “@dartmouth.edu” address (only the address, not an account). This is neater than the old dual system where students had one address/account and alumni another. When the “@alum.dartmouth.org” accounts came in (during 1995 or 1996?) they seemed like an awkward solution. The rationale for creating the new domain was that Dartmouth was barred (by its interpretation of the government’s pre-ICANN rules, one supposes) from using the “.edu” domain for accounts assigned to anyone but employees and students. Yet Harvard came out with its “@post.harvard.edu” domain around that time, so it is hard to see that as the reason.

    Although it was fun to use Blitzmail after college, the need for a personal, ISP-independent email account was soon satisfied more effectively on the Web by Hotmail (1996) and Yahoo Mail (1997). Students responded with WebBlitz (1998 or 1999?) but I don’t recall that it prevented the alumni accounts from slipping into some obscurity. The susceptibility of the alumni accounts to great volumes of spam did not help.

  • The Rauner Blog has a post on Sgt. Allen Scott Norton of WWI with photos of the trenches dug on the future site of Leverone Field House or Red Rolfe Field.

  • The Planner’s Blog has a post on a new war memorials map.

  • Finally a photo of new Hop entrance below the grand ballroom — and the ever-shrinking Zahm Courtyard. It is included in the war memorial map.

  • The College Steward was a charter office first held by Ebenezer Brewster, who established the tavern that preceded the Inn. I’ve wondered if the office could be revived, and whom it should be given to. Contemporary college statutes from England (Downing College Cambridge, published in 1800, in Google Books) suggest that a steward was the head of dining services:

    STATUTE XI.

    OF THE STEWARD.

    THERE shall also be one Steward appointed annually by the Master, from among the Professors and Fellows, to direct every thing which relates to the Commons and Sizings to be served in the hall at dinner and supper, and the wine and other articles provided in the combination room. He shall make all payments in respect of such Commons and Sizings to the Cook and Butler of the College, at such times as shall be appointed by the Master, and shall receive the same from the Tutor, within one week of the end of every Term, for all his Pupils who have been in Commons during the Term; and for all other persons in Commons, he shall be paid by themselves in the same time.

  • The Grad Studies Office has a photo of the professionally-made sign in its renovated 37 Dewey Field Road. (In the recent interior renovation, references to 37 Dewey Field Road seem to encompass both 37 and 50 Dewey Field Road, the old Homes 37 and 50.)

  • Insignia: From a College Grant photo album (pdf), page 20, we learn that

    The “Diamond D” log brand was stamped with a hammer into all logs leaving the College Grant so they could be identified upon reaching the sawmill.

    Unrelated: The clever Europhilia of Football as Football. And it is funny how the Maryland governor’s “Goals” website logo recalls the RAF roundel:


  • Dartmouth Now has an article on the up-close inspection of the exterior of Baker Tower.

  • Congratulations to The Dartmouth on its new website. Here’s hoping the upgrade doesn’t involve a new URL for every past article. This site has more than 220 broken links to the D at the moment.

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[Update 05.03.2014: Broken link to Maryland veterans page replaced.]

The Courtyard Cafe will be going away

Boora Architects has released some of its designs for the expansion of the Hopkins Center.

The first image is a view of the area now occupied by the café and lawn seen in this Google Street View image:


The hill appears to have been carved away and a new glass-walled entrance inserted at the basement level. The blank-walled righthand portion of this three-level infill addition presumably contains the new theater. A balcony projects from each of the upper levels. This might be a sort of Bass Concert Hall facade.

The second image shows the main corridor, presumably at ground level. This seems to be a view to north: the box office and Moore Theatre scene shop have been blasted through, and we can see straight into the existing Darling Courtyard, the unroofed sculpture atrium behind the Warner Bentley bust. The coffering in the ceiling (or in the underside of the floor of the level above) refers to the oval coffering of the original building; in the center a cutout reveals yet another level above. Something interesting must be happening around the current Spaulding lobby if the new stair is to fit. The existing studio range is not necessarily removed, although it is hard to tell.

This part of the Hop currently stands only one level above ground, of course. In this Bing aerial, the corridor is the flat-roofed, black-surfaced element, while the café is the curving Hood-era addition below it.

The fourth image shows the interior of the new theater, presumably looking to the northwest. Off to the left is visible the main corridor with its green seat.

The fifth image appears to show the expanded Darling Courtyard. It looks like the floor has been dropped into Paddock in the basement and a glass roof placed overhead.

The third image depicts Alumni Hall as transformed into a concert chamber. Presumably the vaults will need to be closed up for acoustic purposes (see Jonathan Owens’s study). The existing wooden plaques seem likely to be moved, since they would be obscured by the proposed wall paneling and raked seating.

Impressive.

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[Update 11.21.2013: Last sentence, about Alumni Hall windows, removed. The rendering looks west, not east.]

The Wilson Hall Elm has fallen

The Alumni Office’s twitter account has a photo of the huge elm tree on the ground in front of the Hood Museum. The Valley News reports that the tree struck Wilson as it fell, but it sounds like the damage is minor.

On the bright side, this frees up Tod Williams and Billie Tsien as they redesign Wilson’s entrance.

Other items:

  • The Hanover Crew’s boathouse is being built.
  • ORW designed the landscape for the Williamson Building at DHMC and has some nice images of the design.
  • ORW also has put up a project page for the transit hub in front of the Hop. The original design included a little heated pavilion.
  • The conceptual design for Boora’s Hopkins Center renovation was completed during Spring 2013 (OPD&PM).

Finally, a photo of the Inn’s ballroom addition

The school’s Flickr photostream has a new set of photos covering the renovation and expansion of the Hanover Inn. As noted here a year ago, the construction of a “Grand Ballroom” in the Hopkins Center’s Zahm Garden seems as much an addition to the Hop as to the Inn.

The first photo of this addition foreshortens the composition somewhat — the glass pavilion actually projects from the metal-clad box — but it explains the relationship of the various building masses.

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Update 05.03.2013: Another photo showing the new Hop entrance pavilion in the distance.

Minor updates on building renovations, other items

  • Rauner’s blog has a nicely-illustrated post on Upper-Valley photographer George Fellows, who died in 1916.
  • The Dartmouth on the Collis renovation:

    The new cafe will have an expanded serving area and new cooking equipment, including eight burners at the hot-food station instead of the previous six. The space will feature a larger salad bar, and a Freestyle Machine with over 100 different sodas. The sandwich station will be larger and may feature more filling options.

  • While the ground-level space in the Grange building (Rosey Jekes) is unoccupied, a tapas place called Candela is moving into the coffee shop space in the basement (The Dartmouth).
  • Page 7 of the Winter issue of the Hood Quarterly (pdf) has a guide to public art at Dartmouth: a map with a dozen works listed.
  • Hanover has received the findings of a parking consultant (The Dartmouth).
  • Student slang: The adjective grim makes an appearance in this year’s Carnival theme, “The Grimmest Carnival of Them All” (Mirror cover). On a related note, did anyone else wonder whether the word “joe” in this Sports Illustrated piece on Adam Nelson ’97 was meant to be written with a lower-case j?

    A few days after that win, I met with him at his training base at Stanford, where he explained the mechanics of shot putting with the memorable description: “Little Joe makes the ball go,” while patting his round belly.

  • The New York Times has an interesting travel article on skiing the old CCC trails in New England. It mentions Dick Durrance.
  • A post about Ross Ashton’s Five Windows projection at Dartmouth gives new details on the effort that was required for the show. Each of the windows on the front facade of the Hop was covered with a custom-made Spandex shade attached to the steel window frame by magnetic strips.
  • On the expansion of the Hood Museum:

    We have received a tremendous response to the last issue of the Hood Quarterly, in which we began coverage of our ambitious plans for the museum’s future by interviewing Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the architects chosen by Dartmouth College to renovate and expand the museum’s current facility, as well as the adjacent historic Wilson Hall. Planning for this project, which will see the museum double its gallery space and triple the number of its classrooms through the addition of a new Museum Learning Center, is well underway. I look forward to sharing Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s breathtaking and highly innovative designs for the expansion with you in an upcoming issue of the Hood Quarterly.

    Michael Taylor, “Letter from the Director,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly (Winter 2013), 2 (pdf).

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to Ashton post removed.]

The Inn’s Grand Ballroom

There are still no published exterior photos of the Inn’s new grand ballroom with its new Hopkins Center entrance underneath.

Some interior photos have shown up on Flickr: one, another.

The Inn’s photostream has many interior photos.

The new ballroom blocks the glazed north wall of Alumni Hall. This view from Alumni Relations’ Flickr photostream shows Alumni Hall with the newly-blocked wall on the left. On the other side of the wall, the balcony that originally overlooked the Zahm Garden now seems to be a service corridor.

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[Update 02.10.2013: Inn photostream link added.]

Boora Architects to design Hop expansion

Obscured by the news of Phil Hanlon’s appointment as the college’s next president (Dartmouth, Valley News, The Dartmouth) is the announcement by the Hop that Boora Architects of Portland, Oregon will design the long-awaited Hopkins Center expansion (Dartmouth Now). Boora has done several projects at Stanford and appears to have a lot of experience in expanding existing arts centers. The University of Oregon’s School of Music + Dance is an appealing project, and the Hop-like opening up of the Bass Concert Hall at UT Austin is remarkable.

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to Hop announcement removed.]

Ross Ashton’s Five Windows

The Dartmouth quotes Ross Ashton on his projection, “Five Windows,” which premiered last month:

It’s about a sense of space and place. I always hope that people will see the building in a new way, and I hope to reintroduce the architecture in a new way. The intent is to bring back the history and impact the building had at the time it was made.

Ashton placed white sheets in the tall front windows of the Hopkins Center to provide a projection surface. The town closed down Wheelock Street in front of the Hop during the display.

Dartmouth Now writes:

The projection draws upon both archival and recent images and videos of the Hop, including blueprints and schematic drawings from the planning of the building; photos of the construction and inauguration, including then Dartmouth President John Sloan Dickey atop a front-loader taking a ceremonial first scoop of earth at the site; posters from throughout the Hop’s five decades; and footage from student performances.

See some snippets in this video (via Dartbeat). More information is at Artdaily and Ross Ashton’s website.

The Black VAC film

In the school’s official video, the shots of the Visual Arts Center start at 3:19. Several of the shots of the rooftops of the Hop appear to have been made with a radio-controlled helicopter: a private drone surveils Hanover.

In the section of the film called The Builders [8:04], the emphasis is on cross-disciplinary work. That was one of the original goals of the Hopkins Center as well, but now that the visual arts have moved to their own building, the Hop seems to be left with just the performing arts for cross-pollination.

Ken Burns has a nice quotation: Art “turns out to be the bright burning sun of this particular solar system called Dartmouth.”

Alex Hanson’s thorough article in the Valley News adds yet another possible name to the hat: The Black VAC.

Dartmouth has an announcement of the installation and one-year loan of Crouching Spider.

Moskow Linn’s Ice Chimes

Dartmouth Now writes:

This winter, Dartmouth plans to install the Ice Chimes, a weather-responsive sculpture that unites science, art, architecture, and music, by Dartmouth alumnus Keith Moskow ’83 and Robert Linn of Moskow Linn Architects. The sculpture amplifies both the beauty and the sound of icicles over the course of their existence, as they sway in the wind, clinking and chiming until they grow heavy with their own weight and fall into the collection bucket below.

The sculpture has an electrical heating element at the top that melts snowfall. The resulting water alters or produces sound by coating the hanging copper chimes with ice that later falls into the sheet-metal bucket. The sculpture will be on display this winter near the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center (Dartbeat).

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[Update 11.04.2012: Location info and Dartbeat citation added.]

The graphical Green; arts events

As seen at Dartmouth Now, the Year of the Arts logo initially reads as a cluster of cinema searchlight beams:

But of course it is a map of the paths on the Green, with north to the left. A larger version of the logo at the festival’s website takes on the appearance of a print, or perhaps a painting.

Coverage of the opening of the Visual Arts Center may be found in The Dartmouth and Dartmouth Now. Hood Director Taylor speaks about the Kelly sculpture and its aircraft-grade aluminum in video. The Valley News has a story on the Hop at 50, and the Year of the Arts site has a timeline of the arts on campus beginning with 1962.

The need for a new Alumni Hall

The Hop expansion is going to take over the existing Alumni Hall as a performing-arts space. This makes sense: the big room is right there in the heart of things and seems to be underused.

Although Dartmouth has had an “alumni hall” only since 1962, the idea is worth continuing. In the Hop, the hall is a big multipurpose space that, although not as practical as Spaulding for alumni meetings, is distinguished from all other spaces by its decoration: it attempts to serve as a chamber of memory and sentiment. The Dartmouth Green walls display wooden recognition plaques and banners with the college seal and arms of the second earl of Dartmouth.

A new alumni hall should be a freestanding building; where should it be erected? The most prominent site is the vacant lot in front of Sherman, but that site should be reserved for a future library. What about the vacant lot north of Parkhurst, as an addition to Blunt Alumni Center? A major wing there could create a new and compatible façade in the rhythm of Administration Row.

Projection on the Hop

On October 12, artist Ross Ashton will project a work commissioned by Dartmouth onto the entrance facade of the Hop (The Dartmouth. Ashton seems to use heraldry a fair amount, and coats of arms or flags appear prominently in his projections on the Gibbs Building at King’s College, Cambridge (Flickr, Ashton’s blog), Buckingham Palace (Flickr), and Caerphilly Castle in Wales (ET Now).

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to projection notice replaced with link to The Dartmouth.]

Kelly sculpture going up today

Dartmouth Now has an article on the installation of Ellsworth Kelly’s sculpture on the east exterior wall of Spaulding Auditorium (thanks Matt).

The Dartmouth work is composed of five monochromatic aluminum panels, each painted a single block of color — yellow, green, blue, red, and orange. The hard-edged shapes of Dartmouth Panels play off the rounded roofline of the Hopkins Center’s Spaulding Auditorium and echo the color spectrum and basic building blocks of visual experience.

The installation of Dartmouth Panels begins today.

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[Update 07.14.2012: Artdaily.org has an in-progress photo with the complete set of five panels. They do indeed match the pattern of the 2011 lithograph. The Hood has the press release (pdf). Dartmouth’s Flickr photostream has some excellent photos of the unloading and installation.]

[Update 07.13.2012: The Dartmouth Now photo shows the work with three of the five panels up.]

[Update 07.11.2012: The Valley News has a small photo of the installation. Interesting that this 14 x 28.5 inch lithograph by Kelly titled Dartmouth (2011) features five tall rectangles.]

Possible directions for the Hop expansion

During 2010, the Hopkins Center put on a symposium on the Arts Center of the 21st Century. Its goal was to generate ideas for the renovation and expansion of the Hop coinciding with the Center’s 50th anniversary in 2012. (The materials include a pdf excerpt from the Campus Guide discussing the Hop.)

Hop Director Jeff James spoke about the challenges and opportunities of the Hop at 50 (video). His talk and others, drawing from the 2001 Rogers Marvel master plan (pdf), suggested some of the moves that the project might eventually make:

  • The parking lot alongside the studios is a potential expansion area. It has enough space for two rehearsal theaters, freeing Moore Theatre for performances.
  • The Spaulding lobby could expand westward into parking lot.
  • Alumni Hall could be converted into performing arts space to serve laboratory needs.
  • The studios facing the Courtyard Café will be vacated when the Visual Arts Center opens, and they could be converted into teaching/lab spaces.
  • It is not clear what will happen to the Café.
  • The Hop’s administrators would like to move the ceramics workshop from its house in Norwich to the Hop.
  • If the Hopkins Center offices can be moved (from the east wall of the Moore Theatre?) to a site closer to the heart of the building, the Hood Museum could use the vacated space.

Attendees then broke into five groups for charrettes. Several people expressed their dissatisfaction with the fireplace in the Top of the Hop. It is an odd item (see Dartmouth’s Flickr photo), but it seems perfect for that space: anything less extravagant would dilute the experience.

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to symposium replaced; broken links to symposium materials and pdf removed.]

Inn updates, the story of Bean’s Art Store, and other notes

  • The Dartmouth has a story on Bean’s Art Store, the little shop near the Hop (behind Ledyard National Bank) that has been furnishing Studio Art students with their squishy erasers and tubes of paint for decades.
  • Dartbeat has a post with photos on the progress at the Visual Arts Center. Big Green Alert Blog notes that the power lines along Lebanon Street are going under ground.
  • The Boston Globe links to a Valley News story on the completion of a large part of the Inn renovations (see also Dartmouth Now. The Rauner Library Blog has a post on the Inn’s predecessors on the site.
  • The Christian Science Monitor reports that the Interior Department has designated the Connecticut River and its watershed the first National Blueway in the country. The Valley News reports on the septennial perambulation of the riverine New Hampshire-Vermont border by the two states’ attorneys general.
  • The Valley News reports (again) that the Friends of Hanover Crew now have permission to build a rowing dock at Wilson’s Landing, a part of Fullington Farm. Hanover’s crews plan to move their boats out of Dartmouth’s boathouse and into a new boathouse to be built at the farm. An interesting report (pdf) from Engineering Ventures mentions that when the Friends of Hanover Crew bought their 2.4-acre portion of the farm from Dartmouth in 2008, they promised to allow Ledyard Canoe Club members to store 20 canoes and kayaks on the site, probably in the basement of the existing barn.

  • Dartmouth Sports announced some time ago that the new basketball office suite was completed in the old Kresge gym space in Berry Sports Center (via Dartmouth Now).
  • Thanks to Bruce for his proposal that as part of a Piazza Nervi project, the entrance to Thompson Arena should be redone (Big Green Alert Blog). This is a good idea, since Thompson’s entrance definitely needs replacing. But while one does notice that Thompson’s front facade is not parallel to Leverone’s, the lack of alignment is not necessarily a problem: plenty of urban spaces, especially in Italy, lack any right angles at all. And if the facades were made parallel, the difference in heights might become more noticeable. Who knows… The 2000 student life master plan (pdf) notes that the entry into Thompson Arena is obscured by existing houses along Park Street:

    There are, however, opportunities to reinforce the entry to Thompson Arena by moving or demolishing the College-owned houses on Park Street in front of the current entry. Doing so would relate the Arena to its cousin, Leverone Field House, both designed by Pier Luigi Nervi, and complete an intention planned but never realized.

  • The school’s Flickr page has a photo set showing the new ’53 Commons renovation of Thayer Dining Hall. The photos, along with plans, show that the red awnings in the main dining room have been removed and the bays opened up to allow free passage from north to south. Upstairs is where the real changes have taken place: there are lots of dining rooms up there now. The long, narrow Topside space is a dining room; the space above the leather-paneled Tindle Lounge/Paganucci Room is a private dining room; the spaces above the lobby (formerly offices?) look to be dining or meeting rooms. It is not clear where they put all the DDS offices that used to occupy the second level. At least some of the quadripylons out front were removed for the project (Street View): will they be replaced? Some kind of bollard seems necessary there, but the area might be more interesting with a different solution.
  • The 1994-era Lone Pine Tavern in the basement of Collis has been replaced by something called One Wheelock. It seems that a change in focus was needed, but did the room really have to be stripped bare? Perhaps people were stealing the memorabilia.
  • The Rauner Library blog has had too many interesting posts to count. See posts on the mathematics funerals and duckboards on the Green.
  • Dartmouth Health Connect opened a while back (The Dartmouth). It occupies the former Omer & Bob’s location following a renovation by Haynes & Garthwaite. It turns out that H&G designed Omer & Bob’s new location in Lebanon.
  • Lebanon is selling its Junior High School building, designed by Jens Larson (Valley News, Valley News). Note the similarities to Baker Library:



  • Some interesting things going on at other colleges: Yale is building a freestanding college in Singapore, designed by KieranTimberlake (Times article on the controversy). The University of Virginia is building a facility for its squash team at the Boar’s Head Sports Club, part of a fancy private resort (UVaToday). The Boar’s Head Inn is owned by the U.Va. Real Estate Foundation.
  • That Hanover war memorial that stands in front of the Town Building on Main Street? (Street View.) It was previously associated with the Green, where one would expect a war memorial, and shows up in front of the Inn in an old photo that was published in a recent story in the Mirror. It is interesting to note that a nearby space, just to the east of the Inn, later became a war memorial garden for the college.
  • “Chaste” might not be the right word, but “tasteful” is close: TruexCullins’ Buchanan Hall addition is very nice (Street View, school project page).
  • The Rauner Blog’s post on the Ski Jump features this photo of the jump’s outrun. The jump is gone now, but the Golf Course remains. Does that view show the same site as this one, from the Hanover Country Club’s map of the various holes? More historic images of the jump at Skisprungschanzen.com (via Big Green Alert Blog).
  • More information on the bypass mentioned here earlier, from page 14 of the 2002 Campus Master Plan (pdf):

    To reduce congestion, Hanover has explored alternatives to bypass the Inn corner. A Connector Highway linking Route 120, Route 10 and I-91 would be very desirable for both Hanover and the Medical Center, but Lebanon has not supported this proposal. The College should continue to study this and other by-pass proposals, making College properties available if necessary.

The next Visual Arts Center

I. Introduction

The nearing completion of the Visual Arts Center points up the current underuse of the site next door at the corner of Crosby and Lebanon Streets.

Crosby and Lebanon Streets, existing

Existing conditions. All maps based on official campus map (pdf).

This is a large and important site. Whatever building goes here — let’s assume it is an arts-related building — will be visible to visitors arriving on Lebanon Street. It will need to be a gateway building, as the 2000 downtown Hanover plan illustrates so thoroughly. The Rogers Marvel 2002 Arts Center Analysis (pdf) also emphasizes the potential of this site on page 38.

author photo of Crosby and Lebanon Streets, 2006

View to the northwest showing the corner, 2006.

The first impulse is to follow the footprint of the existing low-scale facilities building. But this site is not only large, it is also unusually malleable. The college and town might be able to relocate Crosby Street in radical ways to completely reshape the ground available for the gateway building.

Why might Crosby be changeable? Because it has been changed in the past. Crosby Street was first laid out in 1872, to separate the state farm on the east from the state college dormitory site and other buildings on the west.

Crosby Street originally ran straight through to Lebanon Street. It was not until the early 1960s that Crosby’s southern delta was given its current incongruously suburban form. When Dartmouth sought permission to close down South College Street for the Hopkins Center, the Town asked Dartmouth to rework Crosby Street in return, aligning the street with Sanborn Road to form an ex post facto four-way intersection.

author photo of Memorial Field, 2006

View to the north showing the front (west) facade of Memorial Field, 2006. The sidewalk preserves Crosby’s original alignment.

Should we worry about Sanborn Road if Crosby is realigned? No. In fact, the downtown Hanover plan proposes in text and an illustration that Sanborn Road be blocked off. Instead, Hovey Lane will give access to this neighborhood through a short outlet punched through to South Street (see map below).

Would the abandonment of Crosby Street’s current alignment open up any possibilities for a college building on the corner? Each of the following proposals assumes that McKenzie Hall/Shops on Crosby is preserved; Sanborn Road is rerouted; and commercial buildings are built on the college land along the south side of Lebanon Street.

II. The Maximum Arts

The gateway building could expand to fill all of the empty land added to the corner:

maximum arts proposal

The maximum arts proposal.

This plan would block an important view of Memorial Field and make Crosby Street into a narrow tunnel. A good use of space, but not good preservation or townscape.

Some variation on this plan, however, might be a good one:

variation on maximum arts proposal

Variation on the maximum arts proposal.

III. The Minimum Arts

Crosby could be pulled to the west, adding a big empty lawn in front of Memorial Field:

minimum arts proposal

The minimum arts proposal.

This plan would not make efficient use of space, and its creation of new lawns would not actually improve the view of Memorial Field.

IV. The Square and Temple

A big public square could be carved out of the surrounding buildings:

square and temple proposal

The square and temple proposal.

If the big square feels barren, a little temple that shares an alignment with nothing else could be dropped down in front of Memorial Field.

This plan would take advantage of the interesting fact that both Memorial Field and St. Denis Roman Catholic Church were designed in the early 1920s by Jens F. Larson. The two buildings appear to be perpendicular to each other, both aligned with Crosby Street.

author photo of St. Denis, 2006

View to the southeast showing north (front) and west facades of St. Denis, 2006.

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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to Memorial Field image fixed.]

Future excitement: the expansion of the Hop

Dartmouth recently announced that it has “initiated a renovation and expansion project for the Hopkins Center and will be selecting an architect in the coming year.” Because the Hop is so large, loved, and important, this is sure to be an interesting project.

On the occasion of the Hopkins Center’s 50th anniversary, the alumni magazine has published a photo essay on the Hop of today and collected reminiscences.

Reading Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker article mentioning the Pixar building and how Steve Jobs concentrated the restrooms in one place as a way of forcing interaction among employees reminds one of the Hinman Boxes and their placement in the Hopkins Center with the specific intention of exposing students to the arts.1Bohlin Cywinski Jackson designed the 2002 Pixar headquarters, the most important Apple Stores over the years, and Dartmouth’s Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center.

The Black family’s gift for the Visual Arts Center includes the funding of an artwork by Ellsworth Kelly that will be attached to the east facade of Spaulding Auditorium this year (The Dartmouth). See this Street View for the likely site.

The publicity around the Hood expansion and the arts center refers to “Dartmouth’s new Arts District.” It seems that neither “Hopland” nor “SoWhee” has taken hold.

There is the challenge of adding to a notable building by a big-name architect, Wallace Harrison. The various firms doing careful insertions in and around the Harrison-planned Lincoln Center, including Tod Williams Billie Tsien, would be worth considering (Lincoln Center page, Times Topics).

Two recent master plans have proposed that the college graft a variety of additions onto the sides of the Hop:

It will be interesting to see where the new additions will go and how they will look. Will the Hop’s studio range really be demolished and replaced, as the Rogers Marvel plan proposes? Will the blank wall on Lebanon Street really get a row of shops, as the Brook McIlroy plan proposes? Will a northern addition expand the Hop proper toward the Green, alongside the original and iconic Moore Theatre? Stay tuned.

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[Update 07.07.2012: Link to DAM article added.]

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References
1 Bohlin Cywinski Jackson designed the 2002 Pixar headquarters, the most important Apple Stores over the years, and Dartmouth’s Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center.