The Hood expansion: blank box with vitrine window

Several articles provide new details on the Hood expansion:

Construction will begin during late July 2017 and end during 2018. The museum will open early 2019 (Planning Board minutes 01.05.2016 pdf).

Some points:

  1. The addition will share the roof line of the Hop, as seen in the main image accompanying the details article. It is not clear yet how likeable the box will be, but the dialogue with the Hop could be appealing.

  2. Where the Hop’s front comprises a glass wall delineated by a thin masonry frame, the museum will be a blank masonry wall pierced by a single smallish opening.

  3. It is interesting that a major goal of the expansion is a presence on the Green; that was a goal of the first Hood. And until it was found to be in the way of growth, the Hood’s signature entry arch was called “iconic.” Now the recently-revealed south facade of the building has been designated its “iconic” facade.

  4. The path of the former College Street will be emphasized and widened. That seems to require the completion of the south facade arch. The original can be seen in this Dartmouth Flickr photo. As noted earlier, this completion eradicates a small pomo witticism. A bit of awkwardness replaces the wit; the arch is just an arch now, and it lands too close to the existing vertical window. But, again, if there’s any firm whose stature could make this okay, it’s this firm.

A Thayer garage on Wheelock Street?

  • Planning for the Sestercentennial is starting in earnest (Dartmouth Now).

  • Check out the West Wheelock massing study by UK Architects, part of the gateway district process.

  • The locker rooms in the Sports Pavilion, one of the only buildings on campus that is not named for anyone, are slated for enlargement (Valley News interview with Harry Sheehy).

  • The school has considered expanding Thompson Arena by excavating under the stands (Valley News interview with Harry Sheehy).

  • The Rauner Blog has a post on the centenary of the death of Richard N. Hall.

  • Don’t forget about the 1966 Webcam on the roof of the Inn.

  • The Dartmouth song “Son of a Gun for Beer” would seem to share a history with this song about the Hebron YMCA recorded on a wax cylinder and described as a Harvard song. “A Son of a Gun” with its current arrangement by Crane appeared in the 1898 Dartmouth songbook attributed to an anonymous author1Edwin Osgood Grover and Addison Fletcher Andrews, Dartmouth songs: a new collection of college songs (1898), 60. Historian Patricia Averill connects the song’s origin to the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”! That song originated in 1817 as “The Rambling Soldier” and was published in 1870 referencing a “son of a gambolier.”2Patricia Averill, Camp Songs, Folk Songs (author, 2014), 232 There is an 1891 reference to “A son of a gambolier, / A son of a gun for beer.”3Henry Collins, “Notes from an Engineers’ Camp,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (September 1891), 374, available at Google Books. Georgia Tech’s “Rambling Wreck” version was printed in 1908.4Averill.

  • Thayer School is thinking of putting a parking garage on West Wheelock Street in place (presumably) of the college-owned apartment buildings there (Planning Board minutes 17 November 2015 pdf). Interesting!

  • Neat topics that are covered in Wikipedia: moonlight towers, low-background steel, Manhattanhenge, ghost stations, trap streets and other fictitious entries (copyright traps), and freedom of the city.

  • In the discussions of Dartmouth’s Lone Pine let’s not forget another piece of stylized vegetation from the Sixties: the flag of Canada.

  • Details on the Baker Tower renovation (Planning Board minutes 3 November 2015 pdf):

    The project includes: replacing the roof, restoring windows, replacing clock
    controls/hands/glass, replacing lighting and addressing issues with lighting, installing electronic controls for the bells, replacing the spire, stopping water infiltration, and cleaning masonry grout.

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References
1 Edwin Osgood Grover and Addison Fletcher Andrews, Dartmouth songs: a new collection of college songs (1898), 60.
2 Patricia Averill, Camp Songs, Folk Songs (author, 2014), 232
3 Henry Collins, “Notes from an Engineers’ Camp,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (September 1891), 374, available at Google Books.
4 Averill.

The Sestercentennial and the College Mace

Introduction

It is common for an academic institution to possess among its “crown jewels” a big ceremonial mace (Wikipedia) that is carried at the head of the Commencement procession and might rest in a special spot during the times when the board of trustees is in session. Dartmouth does not have a mace per se, but the College Usher leads the Commencement procession with Lord Dartmouth’s Cup (visible at the right side of this college Flickr photo), a tall 1848 silver vessel that certainly serves the purpose of a mace.

The mace in the U.S.

The college received the cup until 1969 and did not start using it in processions until 1983. Dartmouth does not seem to have had a mace before that time. Why not? It is not clear. It might be that the academic mace is mostly a recent phenomenon in this country. Here is a list of some notable North American college maces:

A future mace

It would not be surprising if some alumnus or organization were to come up with the idea of presenting the college with a mace on the occasion of its 250th anniversary in 2019. (That time is not too far off: the 250th anniversary class is already in college.) The mace would not only commemorate the granting of the charter but also would symbolize the independence of the institution from the state, with 2019 being the bicentennial of the Dartmouth College Case.

At best, this old-style mace would be fashioned by New England craftspeople,1In addition, the Medallic Art Company has available a selection of maces, mostly with wooden staffs, and Thomas Fattorini Ltd. of England (pdf) makes metal maces. but it need not follow the traditional mace form. Why not have it refer to a Cabin & Trail splitting maul; a woodsman’s cant hook or peavey; a Mountaineering Club ice axe; or an Organic Farm timber-framer’s mallet?

Perhaps the mace could encapsulate within it some historic implement, such as a cane or cane-head that belonged to Daniel Webster; a nineteenth-century axe used in the Second College Grant; a Boston Post Cane from a defunct New Hampshire town with some connection to the college; an ice axe used on a Himalayan expedition during the 1960s; a broom handle used by John Kemeny to prop open the cabinet of an overheating computer; or a hatchet that Robert Frost used in his woodlot. What about a nineteenth-century canoe paddle?

Any of these venerable tools would be sheathed in a protective silver capsule before being gilded, covered in worked sheets of precious metals, engraved, and decorated with jewels. The encrusting might include polished fragments of the Old Pine, the granite front step of Dartmouth Hall,2That step is located at the entrance to Dick’s House. or a piece of wood or stone from the original building of Moor’s Charity School in Connecticut. Parts of the weathered head and handle of the enclosed cane or axe might be left uncovered, and other parts, perhaps the sharp ones, might be made visible through small crystal windows.

So that a person would be available to carry this new ceremonial mace, the board might have to create the office of Quartomillenial Beadle or Semiquincentennial Macebearer.3The charter office of College Usher, currently conferred upon the Treasurer, now imposes upon its occupant the task of carrying Lord Dartmouth’s Cup in processions. The charter office of College Steward might be available, although one might expect its occupant to be the head of DDS and to carry, say, a giant silver repoussé ladle engraved with the word “COMMONS.”

[Update 12.06.2015: Three broken links fixed.]

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References
1 In addition, the Medallic Art Company has available a selection of maces, mostly with wooden staffs, and Thomas Fattorini Ltd. of England (pdf) makes metal maces.
2 That step is located at the entrance to Dick’s House.
3 The charter office of College Usher, currently conferred upon the Treasurer, now imposes upon its occupant the task of carrying Lord Dartmouth’s Cup in processions. The charter office of College Steward might be available, although one might expect its occupant to be the head of DDS and to carry, say, a giant silver repoussé ladle engraved with the word “COMMONS.”

Indoor practice facility going ahead

The trustees have voted to build the indoor practice facility next to the Boss Tennis Center (Dartmouth Now, Valley News, Big Green Alert). The 2013 project page has a conceptual rendering by Sasaki.The building will likely be finished by the Fall of 2017.

The floor of the field where the building is to be built, sometimes called the Sunken Garden, is well below the level of the parking lot (Bing aerial). To the visitor, the building will appear to be a modest shed. Inside will be a vast space. The rectangle of artificial turf should measure about 180 x 255 feet.

Moosilauke Ravine Lodge items, other links

  • Microsoft’s Bing, which has always had much better oblique aerial photography than Google, now has a Google Street View competitor called Streetside. The car came through Hanover last summer (around July 10?). Here are Memorial Field’s West Stands under construction, the upper reaches of Tuck Drive as service road, and the new sorority on Occom Ridge.

  • The Art of Ping Pong raises money for BBC Children in Need with painted ping pong paddles.

  • One of the mascots in the running to replace the Lord Jeff at Amherst College is the moose, The New York Times reports. A mascot does not have to be local, but if you are wondering whether they really have moose in Massachusetts, the paper reports that they do.

  • The Rauner Library Blog looks at a book of photos of Ike at the Grant, the construction of the Hopkins Center, Arthur H. Chivers 1902 and his study of the Cemetery, and a 19th-century dance card (featuring the arms of the Earl of Dartmouth).

  • There is an interesting photo of the demolition of the rear addition to Crosby Hall in the Photographic Files. The Blunt addition was built in its place.

  • The Valley News has an article on boosting activity in downtown Lebanon. Ahhh, the Shoetorium.

  • The Rauner Library Blog has been getting into foodways, looking at recipes for Mountain sticky Stew and Green Machine, the latter being a lemon-lime punch mixed in a wastebasket.

  • The college has a video on the construction of the Class of 1966 Bunkhouse at Moosilauke. Construction is going on now. The Battle Family has donated a challenge gift to spur fundraising for the replacement of the Ravine Lodge (Dartmouth Now).

  • Kiki Smith’s Refuge (earlier called Hoarfrost with Rabbit?) now occupies the plaza outside the VAC.

  • The Washington Post has an article on tontines. It states:

    These arrangements were so widespread in the 18th century that the young United States almost ran a tontine itself: Alexander Hamilton proposed a tontine to pay down national debt after the Revolutionary War. Though his idea was rejected, local communities often set up tontines in Colonial times to raise money for large projects. Scattered in cities all along the East Coast, including in the nation’s capital, there have been buildings that were financed through a tontine. Some roads continue to bear the name Tontine, a sign of how they were paid for.

    Hanover’s Tontine Building, which stood basically where J. Crew is from 1813 to 1887, was presumably funded by a tontine. (An alternative theory is that the building was named for a well-known building in Boston that actually was funded by a tontine.) The library has some great old photos.

    In response to the Post, Paul Krugman properly reminds us of The Wrong Box, the 1966 Michael Caine picture whose plot is based on the operation of a tontine.

  • Dartmouth is enlarging the size of the lot at 6 Rope Ferry Road (expanding it rearward toward the pond?) in order to make the lot large enough to subdivide. The college has no plans at the moment for the new, empty lot (2 June 2015 Planning Board minutes pdf).

  • Jon Roll ’67 of Roll Barresi & Associates did the campus signage for the professional schools (2001 Master Plan pdf, 15). The signs share a look with those the firm designed for Smith College. The Master Plan contains this intriguing comment: “[T]he college continues to debate the wisdom of a sign on Wheelock Street reading ‘Dartmouth College.'” The design of a sign-like monument at the corner of Main and Wheelock was a project assigned to Architecture I classes around 1992. A sign really does not seem necessary here.

Wheelock’s Mansion House sold

The Valley News reports that the college is selling Eleazar Wheelock’s house to the Eleazar Wheelock Society, a “pan-denominational resource promoting a constructive role for faith in learning environments like Dartmouth,” as well as at Dartmouth itself. The group will remodel the building to house 24 students. The college only acquired the house a few years ago, and it seems to be imposing a private historic preservation covenant in this sale. The renovation that turned the house into the Howe Library around 1900 was designed by Charles A. Rich, while the ominous/cute brick stacks addition is later.

The “Mansion House” for the college president was built with funds from London evangelical John Thornton, so its acquisition by this group seems particularly appropriate. The group was founded by alumni in 2008 and aims to establish “a reproducible model that can be duplicated on college and university campuses elsewhere.” It admires Wheelock “because of his commitment to the biblical worldview.”

In thanking Joseph Asch for his kind mention of this site on Dartblog, I am compelled to note Princeton’s preservation of an early president’s house1The house is not that of Princeton’s founding president, if the school had such a person: the College of New Jersey was established in Elizabeth and moved to Newark before it settled in Princeton. that is both older than Dartmouth’s and still in its original location. A 1764 engraving by Dawkins (reproduced in a Princeton news article) shows the Maclean House in front and to the right of Nassau Hall. The two buildings are still standing and appear in this recent Bing aerial.

Putting the president’s house alongside the lawn that lay between the street and the college proper was a standard practice. This image shows Dartmouth’s president’s house in its original location at the righthand end of Dartmouth Row.2Although Wheelock died before Dartmouth Hall was built, he anticipated the construction of a college on the hill and likely had the site in mind when he built his own house.

1830s Currier engraving of Dartmouth

Detail of ca. 1834 Currier engraving of Dartmouth Row showing President’s House at far right. Image reversed from erroneous original disposition.

The relation of the president’s house to the college building made early Dartmouth look very much like early Princeton.3 Early views of the two schools are so similar, in fact, that Dartmouth once used the Dawkins engraving of Nassau Hall as the cover of its annual report in error; confirmation will be posted as it is found.

[Update 11.13.2015: Final three paragraphs added.]

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References
1 The house is not that of Princeton’s founding president, if the school had such a person: the College of New Jersey was established in Elizabeth and moved to Newark before it settled in Princeton.
2 Although Wheelock died before Dartmouth Hall was built, he anticipated the construction of a college on the hill and likely had the site in mind when he built his own house.
3 Early views of the two schools are so similar, in fact, that Dartmouth once used the Dawkins engraving of Nassau Hall as the cover of its annual report in error; confirmation will be posted as it is found.

The plaques are back at Memorial Field

The rededication of the memorial plaques that had been returned or relocated to Memorial Field took place last weekend (Alumni Relations press release, Events notice).

The green wall on which the various plaques are mounted faces westward from behind the brick arches of the West Stands. A new circular logo-like relief sculpture by Dimitri Gerakaris ’69 bearing the motto “THE HILL WIND KNOWS THEIR NAME”1The phrase is a reference to a line in the “Alma Mater,” which is a version of the poem “Men of Dartmouth” (“The still North remembers them, / The hill-winds know their name, / And the granite of New Hampshire / Keeps the record of their fame.”). Richard Hovey, “Men of Dartmouth,” in H.J. Hapgood and Craven Laycock, eds., Echoes from Dartmouth (Hanover, N.H., 1895), 12. is an organizing feature; it was donated by the Sphinx Foundation.2The Foundation, of whose board Gerakaris has been a member, maintains the Sphinx Tomb. Its other purposes include being a “reservoir” of college history and preserving the educational ceremonies of the Sphinx (it conducts a “formal annual course on Dartmouth and Sphinx history and tradition” for members). Getting good Internet access through the poured-concrete walls of the tomb must be tough, and indeed one of the group’s accomplishments is the maintenance of “the building’s wireless and high speed conductivity to ensure the Sphinx Building provides the strongest support for undergraduate academic activities.” Those activities include using the library and study stations and engaging in “extensive peer driven learning experiences” (2013 Form 990 PDF). Gerakaris, of Canaan, is the sculptor of the rugby relief on the chimney breast in the Rugby Clubhouse.

The Big Green Alert Blog has a photo of each plaque. The post-1920s plaques were moved here from elsewhere. For pre-1920s plaques, visit Webster Hall, where an Alumni Association plaque lists the 73 Civil War dead and a Class of 1863 plaque lists the 56 class members who served in the Civil War. The two plaques were installed in 1914, about six years after Webster Hall was finished.

Dartmouth does not seem to have a war memorial for any earlier war, and Charles T. Wood’s The Hill Winds Know Their Name (pdf) does not list any. Dartmouth certainly could have a monument to past and future college students and officers who fought in the Revolution; students of Moor’s Charity School are actually more prominent in that war than are Dartmouth students, and at least one (Joseph Brant) took part in both the French & Indian War and the Revolutionary War.

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References
1 The phrase is a reference to a line in the “Alma Mater,” which is a version of the poem “Men of Dartmouth” (“The still North remembers them, / The hill-winds know their name, / And the granite of New Hampshire / Keeps the record of their fame.”). Richard Hovey, “Men of Dartmouth,” in H.J. Hapgood and Craven Laycock, eds., Echoes from Dartmouth (Hanover, N.H., 1895), 12.
2 The Foundation, of whose board Gerakaris has been a member, maintains the Sphinx Tomb. Its other purposes include being a “reservoir” of college history and preserving the educational ceremonies of the Sphinx (it conducts a “formal annual course on Dartmouth and Sphinx history and tradition” for members). Getting good Internet access through the poured-concrete walls of the tomb must be tough, and indeed one of the group’s accomplishments is the maintenance of “the building’s wireless and high speed conductivity to ensure the Sphinx Building provides the strongest support for undergraduate academic activities.” Those activities include using the library and study stations and engaging in “extensive peer driven learning experiences” (2013 Form 990 PDF).

Residential College details released — two temporary “commons” to be built

The college has released some information about the units that will make up the new House system (Dartmouth Now, Dartmouth Now details, The Dartmouth).

Every student will be assigned to a House randomly. (One wonders whether each House will eventually be able to choose some or all of its members.) Most new students, all of them House members, will start out living in first-year dorms: Richardson Hall, Wheeler Hall, the Fayers (North, Middle, and South Fayerweather Halls), the River (French and Judge Halls), and the Choates (Bissell, Cohen, Little, and Brown Halls). Upperclass students, all House members, will not be required to live in-House.

The House names are obviously temporary. Of the six Houses, one carries on its existing name (East Wheelock), while two are named for their locations relative to the other Houses (South and West Houses). The remaining three Houses are named, arbitrarily, for the streets on which their associated faculty residences happen to be located — just temporarily located, one hopes. For example, the Gold Coast is associated with a house being built in another part of town, on Allen Street, and so the cluster is called Allen House. The same goes for Mass Row (School Street = “School House”) and RipWoodSmith (North Park Street = “North Park House”).

These are the houses. The two temporary buildings are described in numbers 2 and 5.

  1. West House. Dorms: Fahey, McLane, Butterfield, and Russell Sage Halls. Faculty Residence: A house being built at 16 Webster Avenue, west of the President’s House. “Community” space or “commons”: Presumably the existing common area in the “hinge” in Fahey/McLane. Professor: Ryan Hickox.

    Comment: This Faculty Residence makes as much sense as any of the new Residences does.

  2. Allen House. Dorms: Gold Coast (Gile, Streeter, and Lord Halls). Faculty Residence: A house being built at 12 Allen Street, next to Panarchy. “Community” space: A temporary (lasting five to ten years) “two-level building with a snack bar and outdoor area between Gile and Hitchcock” (The D). Professor: Jane Hill.

    Comment: One hopes that eventually this House’s Professor lives in (a) Blunt, the perfect location, (b) a new house built behind the Gold Coast, where there are several great sites, or at worst (c) a new or existing house near the President’s House on Webster Avenue.

  3. School House. Dorms: Hitchcock Hall and Mass Row (North, Middle, and South Massachusetts Halls). Faculty Residence: A house being built on School Street, next to the Allen House Faculty Residence. “Community” space: The temporary building behind Hitchcock, to be shared with Allen House. Professor: Craig Sutton.

    Comment: This House’s Faculty Residence is about as distant as that of Allen House. Instead, South Fairbanks would make an ideal long-term Residence. North Fairbanks — or ’53 Commons, if it is ever not required to serve the whole college — would make an excellent “community” space.

  4. East Wheelock House. Dorms: East Wheelock Cluster (Andres, Morton, Zimmerman, and McCulloch Halls, and possibly Ledyard Apartments). Faculty Residence: Frost House/The White House (existing). “Community” space: Brace Commons (existing). House Professor: Sergi Elizalde.

    Comment: Some new students will also live here instead of in a dedicated first-year dormitory.

  5. North Park House. Dorms: RipWoodSmith (Ripley, Woodward and Smith Halls). Faculty Residence: An existing house at 3 ½ North Park Street, across from Triangle. Community space: A temporary “tent” building occuping the pair of tennis courts northwest of Davis Varsity House. It “is planned to be a ‘sprung structure,’ which generally consists of a metal arch frame with an all-weather membrane over it” (The D). Professor: Ryan Calsbeek.

    Comment: These buildings are south of the College Park and closer to two other streets than they are to North Park Street. Eventually, the college-owned Heorot house would make an ideal “community” space or Faculty Residence.

  6. South House Dorms: Topliff and New Hampshire Halls and the Lodge. Faculty Residence: A new house at 5 Sanborn Street. “Community” space: The “tent” by Davis, shared with North Park House. Professor: Kathryn Lively.

    Comment: There is a surprising amount of space west of Alumni Gym for future housing or community space, and Hallgarten would make an excellent kernel of a Faculty Residence. One hopes that the inclusion of a dorm (the Lodge) and a Faculty Residence south of Lebanon Street does not pull this grouping permanently in that direction; after the Lodge is demolished, it really must be replaced with a commercial building.

Finally, the McLaughlin Cluster (Berry, Bildner, Rauner, Byrne II, Goldstein, and Thomas Halls), while not a House, is getting a Faculty Residence (an existing house at 2 Clement Road) and a House Professor, Dennis Washburn. This group will house LLCs (Living-Learning Communities) as well as some new students who will live here instead of in a dedicated first-year dormitory. Each resident will be a nonresident member of a House located elsewhere. The Faculty Residence is relatively close, and there are good sites nearby for a future faculty house, so perhaps McL. will become a House in its own right.

map of houses

The six Houses plus one. “Community” spaces are in purple, Faculty Residences are in red, and boundaries are exaggerated to indicate (short-term?) disjointedness. Based on Bing oblique aerial.

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[Update 11.04.2015: Map added.]

[Update 11.04.2015: The Dartmouth has a story today stating that the construction and renovation of the faculty houses will cost about $4 million. That amount must be coming out of the $11.75 million approved for the erection of the House system as a whole back in March (post). The two temporary “commons” will probably take up much of the rest of the budget.]

Baker Tower is being remade

The tower of Baker Library will be rehabilitated if not replaced starting next summer (as noted in The Dartmouth and discussed in the Valley News). The design appears to be by Bruner/Cott & Associates of Boston.

The Valley News writes that “with the renovations will come built-in LED illumination that will highlight architectural details ‘in a really elegant way,'” quoting Lisa Hogarty. The lighting design is by Lewis Lighting.

The article describes renovations to the upper, wood-framed portion of the tower, and as usual it leaves out the dirty word “demolition.” But sentences like this one sure make it seem as if the school is planning to demolish at least part of the tower and then replicate it:

Hogarty said the plan was to rebuild the bell tower to “as close to the original architectural details as we can[.]”

Does that mean that just the open cupola with the balcony will be replaced? It is not clear.

The old frame tower and cupola are not finely-worked structures meant for close-up viewing, so the school should be able to replicate precisely those parts that it cannot preserve. One does hope that the school will document before demolition,1The graffiti inside the tower really should be photographed. salvage for another use some of the historic materials that cannot be retained in the new structure, and try to avoid using synthetic materials on the exterior.2The warranty for Hardieplank Artizan HZ10 siding, for example, is limited to thirty years and does not apply in New Hampshire (pdf).

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References
1 The graffiti inside the tower really should be photographed.
2 The warranty for Hardieplank Artizan HZ10 siding, for example, is limited to thirty years and does not apply in New Hampshire (pdf).

Changes continue at Memorial Field, even after completion

Dartmouth Sports has a press release for the completion of the West Stands, and the Big Green Alert Blog has been publishing photos all along, including on July 1, August 19, and September 24 (completion, and the first interior views).

The Valley News article on the Lone Pine logo contained this intriguing note:

Searching for a concept to provide a sort of mental home-field advantage for his troops, Teevens came up with the idea of “The Woods” a few years back. He once coached at the University of Florida, where the football field is known as “The Swamp” and decided something similar should grace Memorial Field. The nickname is used in promotional materials and videos, and plans are in the works for the phrase and the Lone Pine logo to be painted on the facade of the refurbished west stands.

One hopes that the school’s architectural office, the Office of Design, gives the football team some design assistance here.

It is difficult to tell from photos alone whether the designers had a part in relocating the constellation of plaques that has moved from the War Memorial Garden at the Hop to Memorial Field (see the photo at Big Green Alert).

The stands were built as a First World War memorial, of course, and the memorial heart of the building was the high-vaulted, open entrance chamber of limestone and brick. That memorial room has been demolished; it is understandable that Dartmouth could not afford to preserve the building’s entry, or that the openings were too narrow for the new stairs. The college did salvage the small number of First World War plaques from the walls and has put them up again in circumstances that seem somewhat less reverential than before.

As a generic all-wars memorial, the stands feature a green wall — is it painted concrete, or painted wood? — with some plaques1One does miss the old tradition of putting the date of dedication on a plaque. Attention to wording also seems to be declining: One noble plaque, generously given by surviving classmates, honors the “men who served in WWII and those who gave their lives for their country,” implying that those who gave their lives did not serve, and omitting an indication of the category to which the 24 names belong. attached — including the Class of 1945 Weather Post plaque, apparently separated now from its temperature and pressure dials. This building does seem to be a good place to relocate the plaques if the upcoming Hop expansion requires the use of the garden space. One hopes that the plaques were not moved here for thematic reasons alone.

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References
1 One does miss the old tradition of putting the date of dedication on a plaque. Attention to wording also seems to be declining: One noble plaque, generously given by surviving classmates, honors the “men who served in WWII and those who gave their lives for their country,” implying that those who gave their lives did not serve, and omitting an indication of the category to which the 24 names belong.

Official Hood renderings on the way

In the Hood’s Fall Quarterly (pdf), Interim Director Juliette Bianco writes of

the College’s exciting expansion and renovation of the Hood building with architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. The finishing touches of the design development phase of the project will happen this fall, and we look forward to sharing renderings of what the new gallery, teaching, and lobby spaces may look like as we prepare for groundbreaking in mid-2016—look for this news […] in the winter 2016 issue of the Hood Quarterly.

This weekend’s Alumni Council meeting will include a discussion called “Hood Museum Expansion: A Case Study in Capital Project Development at Dartmouth.” The speakers will be Bianco, Lisa Hogarty, vice president of Campus Services, and Bob Lasher ’88, senior vice president for Advancement.

More on the Lone Pine logo

The Valley News has a piece by Tris Wykes on the growing use of the Lone Pine in athletic branding. See also the article “Stand Tall Lone Pine” (Peak (Winter 2015) pdf).

John Scotford [one letter t in his name] designed the pine for the 1969 Bicentennial. The school actually released several different versions or iterations of the logo, and several different representations of a pine tree, most if not all apparently by Scotford:

Bicentennial dual logo

Bicentennial dual logo from a program(?)

Bicentennial medal obverse

Bicentennial medal, obverse

Bicentennial tile

Bicentennial commemorative tile

Bicentennial logo

Third Century logo from frontispiece of R.N. Hill, College on the Hill

Of course the actual Lone Pine — earlier known as the Old Pine, although it was not extremely old, certainly not as old as the school — did not look like any of these, but that is beside the point. (Scotford also designed the 1969 Dartmouth College Case stamp, a realistic image that does not depict any pines.)

With the rise of the pine, apparently the athletic logotype commissioned from SME, Inc. in 2005 (pdf) is going away.1This is good news. I could never figure out that logo. Is the triangular background form meant to represent the gable of Dartmouth Hall? Then why make its essential peak tiny and hide it inside the letter D, where it gets lost on banners and uniforms and Web graphics? But then the upper part of the shape cannot be Dartmouth Hall, because the lower part of the shape is an upward-broadening trapezoid. There is no building at Dartmouth like that.

Logo by SME, Inc.


Athletics logo by SME, Inc.

That logo is completely skipped over by the VN article, which goes from the Big Green nickname (dating to the early 1900s,2The Dartmouth 31:__ (___, 1909), 206 (Google Books). Football games between Dartmouth and the “Indians” of the Carlisle Indian School of the 1910s were called Dartmouth-Indian games — a clear indication that Dartmouth teams were not the Indians. not a replacement for the later Indians nickname) right to the Lone Pine. Neither the Athletic Department’s improving website nor the Football Team’s website uses it.

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References
1 This is good news. I could never figure out that logo. Is the triangular background form meant to represent the gable of Dartmouth Hall? Then why make its essential peak tiny and hide it inside the letter D, where it gets lost on banners and uniforms and Web graphics? But then the upper part of the shape cannot be Dartmouth Hall, because the lower part of the shape is an upward-broadening trapezoid. There is no building at Dartmouth like that.
2 The Dartmouth 31:__ (___, 1909), 206 (Google Books). Football games between Dartmouth and the “Indians” of the Carlisle Indian School of the 1910s were called Dartmouth-Indian games — a clear indication that Dartmouth teams were not the Indians.

Thayer new building details

Thayer School news from the Valley News:

In 2017, administrators hope to break ground on a new building for the Thayer School of Engineering, located near the Tuck School of Business at the western end of campus.

Joseph Helble, dean of the Thayer School, said the expansion would help to accommodate rising numbers of students and faculty, as well as increased need for lab and office space.

“Our undergraduate enrollments have grown tremendously, roughly doubling over the past 5 years, so we are in need of more classroom space, including ‘project labs’ where students work on open-ended, hands-on design projects, usually in teams,” he said in an email Sunday.

The new building would be built in place of the parking lot south of the Thayer complex, according to Hogarty, who said the cost of the project had not been fixed but was planned to come entirely through donations.