Dartmo.

Dartmouth’s Flickr stream has photos of the installation of furniture in Baker’s main hall.

The Dartmouth reports on the progress of the works in Baker Library. Changes to the Catalogue Room or Main Hall itself appear to be minimal.

The new coffee shop is going into a room located behind and to the right (east) of the main desk, site of the short-lived News Center. A map (pdf) shows this room alongside the stacks.

Baker’s display cases, separated by pilasters, line one side of the wall depicted at the bottom of the drawing that accompanies the article in The Dartmouth.

Robert A.M. Stern Architects, designers of Moore Hall, are designing a renovation of the Catalogue Room or Main Hall in Baker Library, The Dartmouth reports (see prior post on the name for the project; a follow-up article in The Dartmouth).

The project will place comfortable seating in the long hall, which has been devoid of the ranks of wooden card catalog cabinets for several years. A coffee bar will be installed in the east end of the hall.

[Update 01.22.2011: Link to follow-up article added.]

The Dartmouth Winter Carnival turns 100 years old in 2011 (Yankee Magazine has an article and slideshow, and Dartmouth Now has an article with video). A new book celebrates Carnival posters (see Rauner Blog). Accompanying the book is an exhibit in Baker (news item, Alumni Magazine has article, photo in the college’s Flickr photostream).

This year’s center-of-campus statue is an attempt to recreate the first official sculpture, of 1925 (The Dartmouth).

[Update 01.22.2011: Links to articles in Dartmouth Now and The Dartmouth added.]

Rauner Library’s blog has sent out a raft of interesting illustrated posts lately, on Howard Lines 1912 and his memorial in Baker; SS Dartmouth Victory, a Victory Ship; Adrian Bouchard, Dartmouth’s official photographer from 1937 to 1976, except for the 1941-1945 period; Orozco and his frescoes in Baker; and gravestones of the Risley family, stonecutters in the early nineteenth century.

[Update 07.28.2010: Erroneous Bouchard years 1837 to 1876 corrected.]

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.

One is gratified to see that, in preparation for naming Baker’s Catalogue Room after a donor, the fundraising website has changed its description of the redeveloped space from “Scholars’ Green” to “Main Hall.”

The Development Office has published requests for a number of specific gifts, including the ’53 Commons Terrace. Three zones will occupy the space between the building and Maynard Street: the Portico, which is a collonaded space; the Terrace, which will have space for 100 people to sit and might be stepped downward away from the building; and the South Lawn, which has a White-Housey sound to it and will be the northernmost Lawn at Dartmouth, an equivalent to Baker Lawn.

The Graduate Student Suite in ’53 Commons will be the first headquarters for grad students of the College.

“The Scholars’ Green” is an idea for reinvigorating Baker’s Catalogue Room with comfortable furniture and other amenities. The idea is a good one, although “the Catalogue Room” would be a better name than “the Scholars’ Green.” Experience at other schools has shown that any fancy computers placed here will be used mostly for watching YouTube and that a single espresso machine will set the tone for the whole space.

Plenty of other interesting requests appear, including one for support of College Traditions.

(The profile of the Development Office has been rising, with its new offices (U.K. Architects, 2003) in 41 Centerra Parkway; it even has its own training department with a curriculum for training staffers.)

The Dartmouth reports on the use of the tower of the Church of Christ (the White Church) for a cell antenna. Dartmouth leases space on Fairchild Tower accross the street, as well as on the Inn, the article states. The article does not mention Baker Tower, although it must be taller than any of those buildings. Perhaps the tower’s profile and Stanley Orcutt’s weathervane are not suited to hosting antennas.

The College has posted recordings of Baker’s bells.

All three of Baker’s main doors, originally heavy 1928 metal revolving doors enclosed in apparently bronze-lined cabins, have been replaced with swinging doors of wood stained a light color and lacking either formal panelling or paint. (Earlier, it seemed that the western door, at least, would remain, since it is at the top of a stair and inaccessible by wheelchair.) Salvors sold off the original doors, and one at least is rumored to have been bought by someone who appreciates its history.

Baker Library has a variety of “twins” at other colleges, libraries that also look like Independence Hall, but its most unexpected sibling is the Maison Internationale at the City University of Paris (basic information), designed by the same architect, Jens Larson.

Although it is all chateau and no Philadelphia, it still has the flanking wings and the long reading room, as seen in an article in Label France magazine and interior photos.

Even the arcade joining the wings, a feature that was contemplated but not built at Baker, is very “Larson” and calls to mind the arcade joining Baker to Sanborn House.

Less expensive than the chance to rename the Medical School is the chance to rename the main hall of Baker Library, at $10 million. The hall will be refurnished as a “Scholars’ Green,” a sort of slightly busy study room. Since the card catalogs were moved out, the place has seemed rather empty, and having something like another Tower Room would be nice. With Novack just downstairs, there would be no need to put in a screaming espresso machine.

Three views of the renovated Baker Library:

The welcome desk above follows almost exactly the form of the earlier circulation desk, but with paneling depicted rather than attached. Now patrons enter the Berry addition through the librarians’ old passage to the stacks. Note the new colors for the library’s main hall, presumably based on historic colors.

The reflection prevents this photo from showing that one of the display cases has been removed to make a window onto the passage leading back to Berry.

As another local instance of outside becoming inside, an exterior wall of the original Baker stacks now lines the passage to Berry. VSBA installed a door here.