The Collis renovation is starting

Posted on 18.10.2012 by Regisseur

Renovations will also allow Collis joint usage of the air handler that currently supplies the Class of 1953 Commons with air conditioning and heating. The Collis Center is frequented by students year-round, but the lack of air conditioning minimizes usage during the warmer months, according to Ramsey.

The Oudens Ello project will expand the cafe and reorganize other interior spaces. It is interesting how the same pattern has recurred two or three times over the last 25 years: (1) The food is popular, and the food-service area becomes way too crowded; (2) when the cafe is finally expanded, it is time to take an off term.

Repurposing Rollins

Posted on 04.10.2012 by Regisseur

The seeming underuse of Rollins Chapel prompts one to ask whether it is finally time to devote the building to a more productive function; whether Dartmouth, without damaging the building or making a change that cannot be undone, should use Rollins for some purpose that serves the academic mission of the school.

Rollins would make a fantastic library reading room or simply a study space, for example. Students would actually have a reason to experience the building on a regular basis and appreciate its recent restoration.

Churches have been turned into libraries at Haverford College in Pennsylvania (below); at St. Edmund’s Hall in Oxford (St. Peter in the East, see interior photo provided by the college); and at Lincoln College in Oxford (All Saints Church, see interior photo by Martin Beek). And from the photos (more), the Modernist bookstore inserted by Merkx + Girod into a 13th century church in Maastricht is simply astounding.

Haverford College library interior.

Dartmouth would continue to provide worship space, especially for student religious groups that do not have independent student centers and denominational chapels somewhere in town. There is little reason, however, for this generic worship space to occupy a prime site at the heart of a secular institution. To use its resources efficiently and help keep its most-used buildings within ten minutes of the Green, Dartmouth could easily justify the removal of its official worship space to a site that is relatively cheap and distant.

Dartmouth might consider building a noble and uplifting timber-framed building, simple and undecorated — perhaps in the form of an octagonal or round barn (Wikipedia), a vast English aisled barn (like Harmondsworth Great Barn, in Wikipedia), or a discount version of Thorncrown Chapel. The building might stand between EKT and Tri-Delt, or it could occupy one of the vacant sites west of the President’s House. It would be the sort of place where alums could hold weddings and the college could hold memorials.

Once the new hall opens, the college could sensitively furnish Rollins as a study space, like the ’02 Room, or as a new home for one of the smaller libraries.

Rollins Chapel. See also the excellent interior photo by Stephanie Wales.

Removing the recent interior lights from the roof trusses would take Rollins closer to its original appearance, and replacing the existing movable chairs with high-quality lighted study tables or carrels would make Rollins into a highly useful building.

——

[Update 05.12.2013: Broken link to Merkx-Girod replaced, additional Maastricht photo link added.]

[Update 11.04.2012: Jacobs Consultancy, a firm working with the college on the new master plan, provides

detailed analysis and feasibility testing of the activities and occupants of a facility or complex, coupled with the analysis of existing buildings, their current, plus potential capabilities and capacities. This process identifies shortfalls and excesses in spaces controlled by various occupant groups, and suggests “highest and best use” scenarios with matches and mismatches by current occupants.

It will be interesting to see what they say about Rollins Chapel.]

A Passion for Snow and other notes

Posted on 26.09.2012 by Regisseur

Here in Hanover ran a profile of architect Randall Mudge in its Spring 2011 issue (pdf).
David’s House at CHaD is adding a wing (Valley News).
This unusual stucco house at 28 East Wheelock has a whiff of Larson about it; it is owned by the college (see Dartmouth Real Estate):
A trailer for the upcoming Dartmouth ski documentary A Passion for Snow is available.
A map art company is selling a print of a stylized map of the campus.
Something big has happened to 8 Occom Ridge:

The later aerial views from Google and Bing (below) appear to show a replacement:
A Dartmouth shirt sold on eBay says “Go Green and White.” Hmmm.
The Development Office has its own in-house PR firm, the Office of Development Communications.
An article on archeology in Columbia, Connecticut explains that the first building of Moor’s Indian Charity School still stands, on a later foundation.
Both the renovated Hanover High and the new Richmond Middle School have biomass plants. It is hard to imagine that any future Dartmouth heating plant would not rely at least in part on burning wood chips.
The Dartmouth Planner reports that the Town of Hanover is beginning to rewrite its zoning ordinances.
Last spring, van Zelm Heywood & Shadford helped renovate Burke Chemistry Laboratory (The Dartmouth).
A recent photo of the roof of the expanded Hayward Room at the Inn, taken with the Class of 1966 Webcam:

Wilder to be plaqued

Posted on 19.09.2012 by Regisseur

Dartmouth Now reports that Wilder Laboratory has been added to the American Physical Society’s list of historic sites. More than 110 years ago, Ernest Fox Nichols and Gordon Ferrie Hull conducted experiments in the building to measure the pressure of light. Their work will be the subject of a symposium during October.

The building’s history certainly deserves recognition. One hopes, however, that Dartmouth isn’t actually planning to alter Wilder’s historic and “largely unchanged” front facade by bolting a commemorative plaque to it, as is suggested by the Dartmouth Now article. Perhaps a freestanding granite monument or an interior wall would be the most respectful place for the plaque.

Minary room plans published

Posted on 08.09.2012 by Regisseur

The Inn has published floor plans (pdf) for the Minary Conference Center within the building. Bill Rooney Studio has posted interior designs, Cambridge Seven also has a new project page with a couple of photos of the completed work, and Here in Hanover¹The fall issue (pdf) also has articles on Shattuck Observatory; a book-shaped granite sundial sculpted by Dartmouth alumnus Bill Nutt and donated to Linacre College, Oxford, by retired DMS professor and Linacre graduate Frank Manasek, author of Study, Measure, Experiment; King Arthur Flour; builder Peter French; and the new Dartmouth ski history documentary Passion for Snow. has a well-illustrated²The computer shown in the photo on the second page is curious: although one can substitute colored components on a Mac laptop, the body is machined from a single billet of aluminum. Somehow the sides of this computer were colored red without the surfaces around the ports and keyboard also being colored. Decals, perhaps? article on the Inn (pdf).

The smaller rooms have familiar names (Hayward, Drake, Ford Sayre), and the larger ones have the logical names Grand Ballroom, Ballroom East, and Ballroom West.

The Grand Ballroom, which occupies the old Zahm Courtyard space at the level of the lobby, measures 57 x 69 feet. This room is part of the third phase of the project and will open during November. One of the architects’ renderings of the new Hop entrance in the Zahm Courtyard, below the ballroom, showed the words “COLLEGE ENTRANCE” above the doors. It will be interesting to see whether the building ends up saying “HOPKINS CENTER” or perhaps nothing at all.

——

 [+]

References
↑1	The fall issue (pdf) also has articles on Shattuck Observatory; a book-shaped granite sundial sculpted by Dartmouth alumnus Bill Nutt and donated to Linacre College, Oxford, by retired DMS professor and Linacre graduate Frank Manasek, author of Study, Measure, Experiment; King Arthur Flour; builder Peter French; and the new Dartmouth ski history documentary Passion for Snow.
↑2	The computer shown in the photo on the second page is curious: although one can substitute colored components on a Mac laptop, the body is machined from a single billet of aluminum. Somehow the sides of this computer were colored red without the surfaces around the ports and keyboard also being colored. Decals, perhaps?

Revealing the spaces within Wilson Hall

Posted on 07.09.2012 by Regisseur

Billie Tsien, in an interview in the latest Hood Quarterly (pdf):

After walking through Wilson Hall, I just can’t wait to clean out everything and take a look at the bones. There are some incredibly beautiful and very powerful spaces in Wilson Hall, and stripping it down will help us to see, for example, the height of the top floor and the skylight. People are really just going to be blown away.

This 1894 photo shows the building’s front entrance.

1894 photo of Theta Delta Chi chapter, from Omicron Deuteron, The Shield [of Theta Delta Chi] 10:1 (March 1894), 52 (from Google Books).

A remarkable discovery about the EBA’s building

Posted on 25.08.2012 by Regisseur

Frank Barrett’s book Early Dartmouth College and Downtown Hanover explains on page 110 that Charles Nash and Frank Tenney built the Inn Garage at 5 Allen Street in 1922. It is the gambrel-roofed building on the right, half way down Allen Street:

(An excellent view of the building appears on page 111 of the book, but that page is not in my Google Books preview. Page 111 is visible in Amazon‘s “Search inside This Book” — search for “Nash.”)

Barrett goes on to note this amazing fact: the old garage building is still there. In its heavily-modified present form, it houses EBA‘s on most of the ground level and one of the Bookstore’s several annexes on the second level:

The former garage at 5 Allen Street.

This is the new discovery: the original garage, now hidden under all that brick, was designed by Larson & Wells.¹The American Contractor 42:14 (2 April 1921), 67. Larson & Wells were the official campus architects during the two decades before WWII and designed Baker Library. While their many campus projects are well known, their utilitarian buildings remain obscure.

——-

[Update 05.12.2013: Broken link to EBAs replaced.]

——-

 [+]

References
↑1	The American Contractor 42:14 (2 April 1921), 67.

Last butterfly in the collection: an architect for Alpha Delta Phi (1920-1922)

Posted on 23.08.2012 by Regisseur

The only notable building that the book fails to attribute to any architect is the Alpha Delta house, built during the early 1920s for the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. The continuing expansion of the Google Books database has offered up an answer: Putnam & Chandler of Boston.¹”Building and Construction News Section: New Hampshire,” The American Contractor 41:51 (18 December 1920), 52-53. The report states that work was already under way on the house by December of 1920:

Putnam & Chandler later designed the Theta Delta Chi house of 1926:

Other interesting gleanings:

–More than a decade before he designed the Church of Christ (the White Church) in Hanover (1935), Hobart Upjohn designed a church for St. Barnabas in Norwich.²”Building and Construction News Department,” The American Contractor 38:51 (22 December 1917), 36. Upjohn and St. Barnabas are covered in the Norwich Walking Tour.

–Psi Upsilon fraternity had William Lescaze, of Howe & Lescaze, design an unbuilt replacement house during 1931.³Lorraine Welling Lanmon, William Lescaze, Architect (Art Alliance, 1987), 112. The Modernist firm was erecting the PSFS Building (Wikipedia) in Philadelphia at the time.

–Prolific Hartford architect Louis Sheldon Newton designed a 40 x 60 house for a “Phi Sigma Nu” fraternity at Dartmouth.⁴”Society Buildings,” The American Contractor 37:23 (3 June 1916), 38. The name rings no bells, but the date suggests that this could be the demolished Arts & Crafts house of Kappa Sigma.

———–

 [+]

References
↑1	”Building and Construction News Section: New Hampshire,” The American Contractor 41:51 (18 December 1920), 52-53.
↑2	”Building and Construction News Department,” The American Contractor 38:51 (22 December 1917), 36.
↑3	Lorraine Welling Lanmon, William Lescaze, Architect (Art Alliance, 1987), 112.
↑4	”Society Buildings,” The American Contractor 37:23 (3 June 1916), 38.

A timber-framed building at the Organic Farm

Posted on 19.08.2012 by Regisseur

The Dartmouth Organic Farm on Lyme Road is planning to demolish a 50-year-old barn on the property and replace it with a timber-framed building to serve as a Sustainability Center, according to The Dartmouth. The builder of the new building will be TimberHomes LLC of Vershire, Vermont, a firm established by DOC historian David Hooke.

Google Street View: the old barn is presumably the one on the left.

Bing aerial.

The West End and other topics

Posted on 17.08.2012 by Regisseur

Dartmouth Now has a post on the 75th anniversary of the Appalachian Trail, and The Dartmouth has an article.
The old through-truss bridge over the Connecticut at Lebanon is being replaced by the state highway department. The old and new bridges appear side-by-side in the Bing aerial.
The Hood has a page on the installation of the Kelly sculpture.
With little fanfare, the college/town-owned Hanover Water Company has been renamed the Trescott Water Company. Find some info at the Hanover Conservancy.
A beer garden at the Hop? (Newhampshire.com).
The owner of Jesse’s Restaurant on Route 120 is building a medical office building nearby (Valley News). Medical office buildings are popular: DHMC’s Heater Road Building had planning approval as private development when the hospital took over the project (DHMC has video about the architect and builder, several renderings, and other info).
Baker Library’s Reserve Corridor, now known as the Orozco Room, is being refurbished.
An old neighborhood in Hanover has developed what seems to be a new name, the West End. As far as one can tell from the web, this neighborhood occupies most of Hanover’s southwestern quarter, West of Main and south of Wheelock. The town is considering whether to designate the West End as a Heritage District (Planning Board minutes Jan. 24, 2012 pdf).
The college built a new chilled water plant next to the VAC (Bond info pdf, A-9).
Ore Koren ’12 created Dartmouth 1820s-1850s, an interesting collection documenting student life during the early nineteenth century.

—–
[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to Newhampshire.com removed; broken links to planning minutes and bond report fixed.]

An Academic Center update

Posted on 13.07.2012 by Regisseur

A memorandum published in connection with the Academic Center/Williams bond (pdf) states on A-9 and A-10 that the North Campus Academic Center will replace Gilman and Dana, is scheduled to begin during July of 2013, and is expected to be substantially complete by March of 2016.

The building is planned to house the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology (the college was mum about this in an article in The Dartmouth, and the plan might still be in flux); the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science; the Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; Dana Biomedical Library; and the administration of the Geisel School.

Elsewhere, it is noted that the Academic Center is a registered LEED project.

And what about the bridge to Kellogg — will it survive? It could be hidden behind the screen visible on the left side of the image published here recently.

Memorial Field West Stand demo going ahead?

Posted on 11.07.2012 by Regisseur

Several years ago Dartmouth planned to demolish and replace the terraced steel-and-concrete seating structure of the main stand at Memorial Field, preserving the screening brick facade on Crosby Street.

Then, in December of 2008, Provost Scherr wrote in a letter that “[t]he full renovation of the West Stands was originally scheduled for November 2008-August 2009. The decision to defer is due to the current global economic downturn, which is impacting Dartmouth, as well as many other institutions.”

View to the north under the stands.

Now a baseball recruiting presentation (pdf), undated but describing the 2012 season, provides this interesting tidbit:

Project	Cost	Year Completed
[…]	[…]	[…]
Memorial Field West Stand Replacement	$ 16 Million	Sept. 2012

Hmmm.

—–

[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to baseball presentation fixed.]

[Update 07.16.2012: In other words, this is a strangely specific mistake for the baseball team to make. One can imagine how an old date, such as August of 2009, might have been left in the presentation over the years; but was the project ever scheduled to finish during September of 2012? Aren’t the $16 million price tag and the September date rather arbitrary to be pure oversights? Who knows where this information came from…]

Sargent Block master plan revealed

Posted on 07.07.2012 by Regisseur

I. Background. Dartmouth acquired most of the properties within two substantial blocks of downtown Hanover during the late 1990s. In the more distant block, called South Block, the Real Estate Office demolished most of the buildings and created a fairly intricate series of mixed-use replacements following a master plan by Truex Cullins. A below-grade parking deck fills the center of the block. The result is impressive: in the image below, the two commercial buildings north of the square white roof anchor the project, and the new buildings continue eastward along the street at the top of the image (South Street).

Bing aerial view of South Block

II. Phase Two. The projected second phase of the project will address the Sargent Block, along Lebanon Street. Located diagonally opposite South Block, this block is much closer to the center of campus. It includes the Lodge, an old motel converted to a dormitory decades ago.

Bing aerial view of Sargent Block

Sargent Block map from official campus map

Detail of current campus map showing present Sargent Block.

This part of the project has been slow to get off the ground. C.J. Hughes reported in a 2010 Alumni Magazine article on the Lodge that the Sargent Block redevelopment has been put off until at least 2015. Dartmouth has built only one building in the block, 4 Currier Place, which architects Truex Cullins describe as “the first phase of the master plan for the Sargent Block redevelopment.” An old planning document (pdf) suggests that the redevelopment would replace 22 dwelling units on the site (rental units, not dormitory beds) and add an additional 113 units. Dartmouth has not released any information about a potential master plan for the block.

III. The Master Plan. A campus tour map posted on the Admissions website as late as August of 2010 included the then-current master plan for the Sargent Block:

Detail of campus tour map.

Here is the master plan layered atop the existing conditions:

Sargent Block plan layered atop existing conditions

The master plan has probably changed since it was (somewhat inadvertently) published, but at the time, it seems to have been accurate. The map shows a number of interesting moves by Dartmouth.

The college is buying into the proposal in the town’s 2000 master plan that this block be divided by a new east-west street. In addition, the existing but somewhat vestigial Sargent Place is continued through the block. Both of these changes will improve circulation and make the closing of the north end of Sanborn Road an easier proposition.

The map indicates:

The removal of three or four historic houses;
The construction or relocation of two houses and one large addition;
The construction of at least two large commercial buildings and six smaller ones; and
The construction (apparently) of an underground parking garage.

The plan appears to retain the C&A Pizza building. The old frame house and its commercial addition add a lot of character to the street; the website says that C&A has been going since 1976, and that could be the date of the addition.

Google Street View to southeast showing C&A Pizza building.

East of Sargent Place, the Lodge is to be demolished, of course. This will move the effective southern boundary of the campus to the other side of Lebanon Street and make Topliff the school’s southernmost dormitory — a big step. Also to be removed, at least according to the master plan, are the Victorian frame house of the Jewel of India and the solid brick house containing Kleen.

Google Street View to south showing Jewel of India and Kleen.

The Jewel of India really must be removed from its crucial corner site. It also really should be preserved, and its frame construction would make it relatively easy to relocate to a site in the southern part of the block. The appealing Kleen building is so substantial that it would seem a waste not to incorporate it into the redevelopment. But it is not a rarity in Hanover, so it might be hard to argue for.

Around the corner onto Sanborn Road, the plan shows the removal of two frame houses. Below the new cross-street, the two existing houses are preserved, one with an addition to bring it out to the corner — nice. This southeastern corner of the block is depicted as preserving the residential character of the immediate area, however small that area is.

IV. Conclusion.The plan only hints at the buildings that might someday form a new gateway to Dartmouth. But it is a positive sign.

———

[Update 08.12.2012:

Something about the plan rang a bell: This presentation (pdf), linked here during 2008, has a more detailed version of the plan and even a few perspective renderings. The first rendering shows the intersection of Lebanon and Sargent Place looking south. That’s the Serry’s Building on the right and the Lodge replacement on the left. Compare this view:

Walking down Sargent Place to the new corner and turning left would reveal the second view included in the presentation. The third image is hard to place but might be a view to the south along Sanborn Road or west along South Street.

What about the plan as a whole? It seems quite appealing. It is hard to believe that a ratty parking lot could be turned into this neighborhood. Replacing a dormitory (the Lodge) with rental housing and commercial buildings amounts to an unusual retreat for the college, a constriction of the borders of the campus. At the same time, the plan is not meant to rule the outcome: the flat roofs and streaky-bacon brickwork will not emerge precisely as they are depicted. For an example, compare the semi-Modernist reality of 4 Currier with the gabled prediction of the early views.]

—–
[Update 05.03.2014: Broken link to 4 Currier page replaced.]
[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to old planning document fixed.]

Director Taylor on the Hood Expansion

Posted on 19.06.2012 by Regisseur

Lee Rosenbaum at CultureGrrl has a post on the selection of Williams and Tsien as architects for the expansion. She quotes Hood Director Michael Taylor:

What really drew me to their work was their additions to the Phoenix Art Museum, which I think are superb, and the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. Seeing the latter blew me away, since I saw how they could transform the Hood Museum’s entrance, while the former gave me a sense of what our new galleries could look like.

Rosenbaum also filmed an interview with Taylor in front of Wilson Hall, and she presents the video in the post. A few interesting things he mentions: the building is likely to include a “light box” and the new entrance will contain lots of glass and lights and possibly a big “Hood Museum of Art” [sign]. Wilson also will include a visitor services area and possibly a café.

Taylor also says that the archway where the Hood and Wilson connect will be replaced with the museum learning center. He probably means the arched door opening in the hyphen, not the iconic trabeated concrete gateway of the Hood itself.

Images of past work by the firm show at least a few formal similarities with the Hood, including the use of glazed brick and concrete and the interest in long flat spans, sometimes uncomfortably long in the case of Williams and Tsien. The firm’s project seems unlikely to refer to Wilson’s arches.

Past projects that seem most likely to be echoed in the Hood expansion are visible in images from the firm’s site: Skirkanich Hall at UPenn (another, an exterior); the Phoenix Art Museum (another); the Mattin Student Center at Johns Hopkins; the American Folk Art Museum; and of course the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (with its exterior entry).

The Hood will close about a year from now and reopen during the Spring of 2015.

—–

[Update 05.12.2013: Nine links to Flash content at TWBTA site removed.]

[Update 07.07.2012: Spelling correction and minor wording change made.]

Possible directions for the Hop expansion

Posted on 17.06.2012 by Regisseur

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.

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

A renovation of Collis

Posted on 15.06.2012 by Regisseur

Oudens Ello Architecture of Boston has created a nice computer model of the Collis Center as part of its $5m renovation of the building.

Prior to founding their practice in 2007, Mr. Oudens and Mr. Ello held senior leadership positions at Machado and Silvetti Associates[.]

The work will improve the air conditioning and expand the food-service area eastward to the front wall of the building, taking over the narrow eating area and corridor that occupied that space (The Dartmouth).

Aerial view of Collis (Bing).

—————–

[Update 07.07.2012: Details on reconfiguration of spaces and link to The Dartmouth added.]

Will Dartmouth demolish Gilman and Dana?

Posted on 13.06.2012 by Regisseur

At Commencement the Board announced the construction of the Williamson Translational Research Building at the hospital (a project announced in 2007) and, more notably here, of a “North Campus Academic Center” (Dartmouth Now via Jon).

The Academic Center will contain classrooms, academic offices for DCHCDS and other programs, and the Dana Biomedical Library, an institution that currently occupies its own building. The Center might be made up of multiple buildings: “Dartmouth director of project management Matt Purcell says that the school … is developing two buildings for its new North Campus Academic Center” (Real Estate Bisnow Boston).

An overlooked document from a conference last month (pdf) includes a rendering of the buildings:

north campus academic center rendering from building congress pdf

Rendering of North Campus Academic Center from May 17, 2012 Massachusetts Building Congress materials, page 9 (pdf).

That brick building behind the new screen on the left is Remsen. Compare this view:

View to northeast from Kellogg Auditorium, with Remsen on the left and Gilman on the right (Google Street View).

The buildings shown in the rendering occupy the sites of Gilman and Dana. Those buildings are not particularly popular, and their demolition would have been good to mention in the press release.

Acknowledging that the rendering probably does not represent a final design, what can be said about the project? It looks better than Gilman. The far block, with its stone (?) cladding, might be the library replacement. The less pretentious near block, of brick-red cast masonry units (?), is probably the classroom building. Between the two is a glazed tower. The sweeping concrete wall and bridge is a bit too Fairchild, but it should improve the circulation in the area and make the Medical School more porous and campuslike.

The rendering above was an interesting one to choose as the representative of this project: it is not the view from the street or from the center of campus. Instead, it looks to the northwest from around the center of the left edge of this aerial:

Aerial showing Dana at center with Gilman just to the southwest (Bing).

If Gilman is to go, the school should save the wonderful (Scotford-designed?) lettering from its entrance and the polite sculpture that is affixed to the east end of the building.

Townscape: The view from Sudikoff.

Street View to north showing Gilman as the terminus of the McLaughlin Cluster axis.

Even though Gilman long predates the McLaughlin Cluster, it provides a not-bad terminus for the Cluster’s main vista. The new academic centers building now has an opportunity to provide an intentional northern end to the axis. Without being heavy-handed or obvious, this building also could provide a gateway to the medical school — perhaps not Seussian gargoyles (a fertile field…) but some acknowledgment, such as a pedestrian passage or an inscribed granite lintel, that this is where one institution ends and another begins.

—————-

[Update 07.07.2012: Townscape information and better comparison image added. The gold lettering visible in a photo from The Dartmouth is the salvage-worthy Gilman detail referred to above. It seems from the photo to be painted on the transom. If that panel is removed and is not installed in the replacement building, what happens to it? What happens to all the notable elements that surely are removed from demolished buildings? Until there is a Dartmouth Museum, they could be displayed in the studios at 4 Currier or the VAC. (Dartmouth could indeed build a museum to its own past and stock it with the realia now in the archives.)]

The 122,000-square foot North Campus Academic Center is scheduled to contain:

18 classrooms
the Dana Biomedical Library
interdisciplinary space for the Geisel School of Medicine; the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science; and the Department of Sociology

Sources: Dartmouth Now and Tradeline.]

[Update 08.12.2012: There is other lettering at the east end of Gilman as well.]

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