Mark di Suvero’s X-Delta has moved again, this time to a site in front of Berry Library. It will move back to its permanent site below the Hood after the Visual Arts Center is finished.
And Richard Nonas’s 1976 sculpture Telemark Shortline is back:
See also Google Street View.
I. A recent one-paragraph review.
One alum quoted in the Alumni Council’s annual report (pdf) stated:
The north campus is appalling. The buildings look like something from USC and it is barren of trees. Further, the buildings pointlessly drift off to the right, making it an unsatisfying prospect. Seriously, from Berry north they need to plant several thousand trees to soften and obscure this severe, inappropriate landscape.
There is something worth discussing here. The unusual wording itself creates a number of questions:
What does “north campus” mean? Is it the area around Kemeny, the stretch from Berry to Moore, or the stretch all the way up to Gilman? The word “severe” in reference to the landscape suggests that he* is referring to the Kemeny area, which has low granite walls. But who knows?
How quickly are trees supposed to grow? Berry Row was recently a construction site. One supposes the same trees are to a) provide general natural beauty (“The north campus is barren of trees”) and b) obscure a landscape.
The buildings drift “pointlessly” to the right: does this mean that the buildings fail to lead to a point, such as the still-unbuilt terminus of the Berry Row axis, or does it mean that the alignment of the row should follow an unbending north-south line no matter what goes on in the surrounding streets? It is obvious that the curve in the line of buildings traces of the historic curve in the town’s street grid, which in turn follows the bend in the river.
Is the USC comparison useful? The rather attractive buildings of USC do not look similar to the buildings of Berry Row and do not seem to have been designed by Moore’s firm, unlike, say, certain buildings of UCLA, UCSB (Kresge College, 1971), UCSC, and Berkeley (Haas School of Business, 1995).
II. Another take.
Kemeny/Haldeman seems successful. The building’s street facade is admirably modest in scale; the twin porticos are delightful. The way the building works with Sherman to bracket Carson Hall is important and it seems well done. The towers on the inside of the block are not as notable as they could be and disappoint somewhat. The handling of the termination of the main tower’s north facade might be a mistake: it is not much of a tower if it does not even meet the ridge of the roof.
The eccentric footprint of the McLaughlin Cluster has the potential to be too quirky for its own good, but it works; the apparently arbitrary inflection is not bothersome.
A brochure-quality view of McLaughlin captured by Google Street View looks to the south toward the towers of Sudikoff and Baker. The use of granite and white-painted brick, reminiscent of Dartmouth Hall, is appealing.
Street View has a photo of the hefty sculptural light-pier at Bildner’s front entrance.
The absence of shutters on McLaughlin is a bit of a let-down, but shutters seem to be the litmus test for traditionalism in Dartmouth buildings these days: Fahey-McLane was meant to be shutterless but got them anyway, according to one account, because they were important to a donor.
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* Really a “he”? He seems to be under 40 (the youthful use of “seriously”) but might view himself as having the tastes of someone over 60 (the use of the antiquated “prospect” instead of “view”).
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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to Alumni Council pdf fixed.]
The Class of 1953 Commons project, a renovation of Thayer Dining Hall (The Dartmouth, The Dartmouth), has finished.
Dartmouth Now has an article on the dedication with a flash (!?) slideshow of photos on Flickr. Bruner/Cott also has an image of the main dining room, and a first-floor plan appears on the DDS portion of the college website.
The building’s interior is hard to recognize. The photos show crisp white walls and sunlight replacing the cramped spaces and dim lighting of Thayer’s last renovation, which occurred in the 1980s. The main dining room, the site of Full Fare in the early 1990s and later Food Court, retains its original wooden roof trusses but abandons the painted flower ceiling panels. The south side dining room (Food Court of the early 1990s) is cool and sophisticated. The building now offers dining on the second floor, probably where the miniature convenience store called Topside once was, and perhaps where DDS offices once were.
Outside, the new stair is clad in granite. Irrespective of the changes in the menu, it looks like a nicer place to eat in.
I. Aerial films
Dartmouth Now has posted a video of a campus flyover taken from a helicopter. While most aerial photos look from south to north, this video skirts the northern and eastern edges of the campus. Things look different from this new perspective:
See also the helmet cam video of a parachutist landing at Memorial Field to start the Columbia game on October 22 (via the Big Green Alert blog).
II. Street View: Paths and Passages
Google has added the results of a sortie by one of its human-powered tricycles to its visual representation of Dartmouth’s campus. At least one trike visited about a year ago. Here is the view from the center of the Green.
The tricyclist took a curious detour to the rear of the NAD House and traversed the bridge to McCulloch Hall. He managed to ride under the Bildner Hall portico, onto the running track at Memorial Field, through the Hood Museum gateways, and along Mass Row.
Who knew that this little village lane meandered around the back side of College Park?
The rider’s reflection appears in the windows of the Berry Sports Center and the MacLean ESC. When he stands up to pedal up the hill north of the McLaughlin Cluster, you can see his helmet, and the camera has a brush with some tree branches along Maynard Street.
[02.25.2012 update: See also the articles by Susan J. Boutwell, “Dartmouth Among First Schools Showcased in Google Maps Feature,” Dartmouth Now (January 11, 2012) and in The Graduate Forum (January 17, 2012).]
The college dedicated the Life Sciences Center on November 5 (The Dartmouth, Dartmouth Now, the Chronicle building blog). A new video shows a few of the large building’s interiors. The college Flickr feed has more.
Google’s Street View cyclist captured the LSC on a beautiful day about a year ago. Look at that copper! Dartmouth posted a video during construction explaining the building’s proposed LEED certification.
The center’s architects are Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. The firm designed the monumental Apple Stores, including the Fifth Avenue cube, which reopened November 4 after being reclad in larger panes of glass, as well as the Pixar Animation Studios headquarters. (Apple’s upcoming spaceship headquarters in Cupertino is by Norman Foster.)
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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken links to headquarters and Foster replaced.]
The Dartmouth recently published articles on the progress of construction in general and ’53 Commons in particular. The word is that football recruits like the revived Commons.
The designers of the LSC, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, call the rectangular green space framed by the new building “the Yard.” The paved paths look as if they follow routes that have been there for generations, but one has to wonder how the architects knew to put them where they are. The Dartmouth has an article with details about the building, noting that the dedication will take place next month.
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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to webcam removed.]
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[Update 05.03.2014: Broken link to trough article replaced.]
[Update 05.12.2013: Broken link to Dragon photos removed.]
[Update 01.13.2013: Broken link to new residential colleges replaced, broken link to site map removed.]
An article in The Dartmouth today credits Bruner Cott with the design of the ongoing Class of 1953 Commons renovation of Thayer Dining Hall.
The identity of the designer of this project has been the object of some curiosity. Initially, Bruner Cott designed a new dining hall to be called the Class of 1953 Commons (pdf) as part of the McLaughlin Cluster. Once food service was available at the north end of campus, the school would have been free to demolish the historic Thayer Dining Hall and replace it with a new dining facility by Kieran Timberlake (see planning document pdf).
The downturn and other factors caused Dartmouth to drop both dining halls and to settle for renovating Thayer, renaming it ’53 Commons. The answer to the question of which firm would get the job has not been answered publicly until recently. (Bruner Cott’s site also lists this project and has a rendering of the main dining room.)
The article is illustrated with a photo depicting nearly the view shown above.
The Dartmouth reports that the new Center for Health Care Delivery Science will start teaching students this summer. According to the paper, the Center now occupies seven offices in 37 Dewey Field Road and soon will expand there. The 37 Building is one of the old Nursing School buildings north of the old hospital; the Wikimedia Commons shows it with what looks like a recent entrance addition.
The paper reports that the Center might get a new building in the future (this site has speculated about the school’s location and whether it will need a building).
News notes on construction projects old and new:
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[Update 07.06.2013: Sluggish link to SBRA announcement removed.]
The photo accompanying the press release on the recent pre-renovation dedication shows that the word THAYER has been replaced with the words CLASS OF 1953 COMMONS over the door of the building. (The inverted display of the Dartmouth flag is understood to indicate a beverage emergency.)
One of the biggest problems with Thayer seems to be that building’s kitchen gets extremely hot. The Dartmouth reported recently that a 250-ton air conditioning unit will be placed on the building’s roof in the upcoming renovation. Reed Construction Data lists Kieran Timberlake as the architects but seems to describe the earlier full-replacement project, notwithstanding the mere $500,000 cost projection.
Rauner Library has provided a remarkable photo of the Butterfield Museum embraced in a death-hug by Baker Library. This is a view of the south and east facades of the east wing of Baker, looking to the northwest. The problem of Butterfield appears to have had a significant influence on the design of Baker.
See also the photos of the bells and the steel frame of the tower under construction.
With historic Clement Hall demolished (film and photos), the Visual Arts Center construction has been put out for bid.
Phi Delt reconstruction continues, The Dartmouth reports.
Engleberth Construction provides photos of the Tuck Living-Learning Center (Achtmeyer, Raether, and Pineau-Valencienne Halls).
It is not new, but Forever New: A 10-Year Report provides a comprehensive photo of the interior-block facades of Kemeny-Haldeman not available elsewhere.
The US News article on college Olympians (see also USA Today and Dartmouth’s recap) notes that Dartmouth’s is the first collegiate ski team. Another significant tradition is the the ski team’s organizational existence outside of the athletic department. The team is part of the outing club instead, following a 19th-century way of running things.
The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, now on line with archives back to July 2008, has issues featuring the DOC Centennial (see also the Congressional recognition) and the Olympics.
Dartmouth Life has an article on Carnival posters that mentions Winter Carnival: A Century of Dartmouth Posters (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, forthcoming fall 2010).
Hanover engineer and architect Edgar H. Hunter, a 1901 graduate, designed promotional posters for the state’s ski industry, including one from 1935 pictured in E. John B. Allen’s New Hampshire on Skis (Arcadia, 2002), 2. His son Ted Hunter ’38 was an Olympic skier and also an architect.
A remote tour of recent construction via Google Street View images made around August 4, 2009, judging from the Hop’s marquee:
The Neukom Institute was rumored last year to be considering a request for an addition to Sudikoff.
Ledyard Canoe Club plans to rebuild Titcomb Cabin, which burned last spring. The logs will be put in the river at the Organic Farm and rafted down to Gilman Island. This will be the closest thing to a log drive seen on this stretch of the Connecticut in many years.
David Hooke (Reaching That Peak, 1987) gave a “smoke talk” in Commons on the Outing Club’s history. The Dartmouth reports that “smoke talk” refers to the club’s journal Woodsmoke, but it might also refer to the informal lectures of that name that took place in College Hall at the turn of the century.
The Wall Street Journal has an article on Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates that, although not mentioning it, helps explain their Berry Library project.
Check out the buildings in Dartmouth’s Flickr photostream.
The Dartmouth is doing a weekly articles on Dartmouth out-of-town, starting with the riding center at Morton Farm.
Dartmouth is offering for rent the second level of the 1910s library stacks addition to Eleazar Wheelock’s house. This could make a good society hall:
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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to VSBA page fixed; broken link to rental page removed.]
The Dartmouth reports that the freestanding Class of 1953 Commons and the Thayer Dining Hall replacement, projects that have been on hold for about a year and a half, have both been canceled. The funds raised for 53 Commons will fund the renovation of the original Thayer Hall instead.
Dartmouth has frequently wrestled with the question of whether to have a single main dining hall or a widely-scattered group of two or more dining halls. Commons in College Hall was the only dining hall from 1901 to 1937, when Thayer Dining Hall opened. But Thayer was just across the street from Commons, and connected by a tunnel — the centrality remained.
About ten years ago, Dartmouth decided to put a new dining hall at the north end of campus as the centerpiece of a group of new dormitories and a polar counterpart to Thayer (see the North Campus Master Plan). Moore Ruble Yudell with Bruner/Cott designed the building, which was to be called the Class of 1953 Dining Commons and can be seen in a series of sketches from the spring of 2007.
This building and a temporary dining hall were to relieve pressure from Thayer so that Thayer could be demolished and replaced by a building designed by Kieran Timberlake. Known in the collegiate context for spare stone dormitories and a glass-walled dining hall at Middlebury, Kieran Timberlake considered renovating Thayer in its Basis of Design (November 3, 2006). The firm’s final proposal involved the complete replacement of Thayer with a new building set back from Mass Row.
The firm produced preliminary designs (The Dartmouth) before Dartmouth put the project on hold in the spring or summer of 2008.
Some concern over what appeared to be the Thayer Replacement’s poor preservation practice was expressed here. So although one wishes the circumstances were otherwise, it is good to see that Thayer will survive. No mention has been made of who will handle the renovation, but judging from their stylish renovations of Davenport and Pierson Colleges at Yale, Kieran Timberlake could produce a very interesting design.
[Update 01.17.2010: Both the article in the D and the press release note that Thayer will be renamed the Class of 1953 Commons. The release also emphasizes the preservation aspect and notes that work will begin this summer and end in 2011.]
A Valley News article reports President Kim’s suggestion that Dartmouth host a national institute of the science of the delivery of health care. One imagines that it would accompany or expand upon the existing Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. That institute is scheduled to occupy the postponed future Koop Medical Science Complex at the south end of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (map).
If not located at the hospital, however, such an institute would make an excellent candidate for placement north of the medical school, even on the golf course. It would not require parking for patients; it would benefit from its proximity to downtown — walkable if not convenient enough for a student function — and yet it would be indisputably part of the college.
To allay the concerns expressed here last year, this building and any other buildings on the site should be made to follow the form of the town, not the campus. A grid of streets with sidewalks and buildings, rather than a network of curving driveways with lawns, would promote density while acknowledging that the college does not expect students to walk this far from the Green on a regular basis. The buildings would harmonize with the campus without pretending to be a part of it — much more South Block than McLaughlin Cluster.
The Institute for Security, Technology, and Society could move to the site, along with other administrative offices now at remote locations, such as the offices in the bank building on Main Street and the Development Office, which is in Centerra.
The perfect completion of such a plan would involve the Hanover Country Club House. The club has wanted a larger and more convenient clubhouse for several years. A new east-west connector street at the north end of this expansion project, crossing the south end of the golf course between Lyme Road to Rope Ferry Road, could provide an excellent site for such a building. The clubhouse would occupy the north side of this street, looking up the stretch of greensward; the south side of the street would be a densely-built wall representing the end of the urban development of Hanover. Compare the fascinating conditions of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
In Hanover, the clubhouse would stand on the north side of the northern cross-street, whichever was built:
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[Update 05.03.2014: Broken link to DIHP&CP facts and figures replaced.]
[Update 09.25.2010: With all this talk of buildings, it never occurred to me that the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science would be mostly on-line.]
[Update 02.06.2010: Map added.]
The delay in construction of the Class of 1953 Commons north of Maynard Street is due to trouble obtaining permits, The Dartmouth reported last month, but the building is still going ahead (October 31 article) and will be built between August 2010 and August 2012 (Capital Projects Schedule October 13, 2008 [pdf]).
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[Update 01.05.2013: Two broken links to The Dartmouth repaired.]
[Update 11.18.2008: With the endowment drop (story in The Dartmouth) requiring budget cuts (story in The Dartmouth), some projects are being put on hold, but “We will complete planning already under way for projects which would then require additional financial resources before proceeding to the next phase: Class of 1953 Commons and the C. Everett Koop Medical Science Complex” (November 13 letter from Scherr and Keller).]
