Dartmo.

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.

• The Real Estate Office’s new office building at 4 Currier, designed by Truex Cullins, was awarded a LEED Silver rating.
• College Photographer Joseph Mehling ’69 is retiring (The Dartmouth). Among hundreds of college-related projects, Mehling provided the photos for the Campus Guide.
• The Rauner Library Blog notes that the Freshman Book – the Shmenu – was last printed on paper in 2009.
• CRREL, the Army’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory north of campus, was giving tours recently (Valley News).
• Old fire insurance maps of American cities and towns produced by the Sanborn Map Company are invaluable to historians. A post at Bibliodyssey features the elaborate designs displayed on the title pages of Sanborn maps.
• According to hikers interviewed for an article in The Dartmouth, all of Hanover’s mile markers for the Appalachian Trail are inaccurate. Experience with the Milepost on a couple of drives up the Alcan suggests that the inaccuracies result from the practice of rerouting the trail.
• The watering trough that once occupied the southwest corner of the Green is featured in a post at the Review.
• The ongoing basketball office renovations in the Berry Sports Center are planned to include a “display of Dartmouth basketball history and tradition” (Valley News).
• The Dartmouth had an article back in May about how Rauner librarians hope that the players of new metadata games will help them attach information to untagged photos.
• Randall T. Mudge & Associates Architect has exterior and interior photos
  of the Dragon Senior Society hall. The interior paneling, taken from Dragon’s 1931 hall behind Baker, really does look like a Larson & Wells product.
• The site What Was There brings rephotography into the digital era by superimposing historic photos on Google Street View images.
• Yale’s new residential colleges site has a nice site map (pdf) showing existing colleges and site of the two new colleges designed by architecture school dean Robert A.M. Stern. The Grove Street Cemetery really is in the way…
• An article explains the move from the old hospital north of Maynard Street to the new DHMC complex in Lebanon 10 years ago.

Dartmouth’s and Memorial Field’s first night game under the new lights will begin at 6pm tonight against Penn.

The sports publicity office’s extraordinary promotional efforts, as chronicled by the Big Green Alert Blog, include a banner across Main Street, an advertising poster, and a drinks coaster distributed to local establishments.

In December of 2008, Dartmouth put on hold its planned rebuilding of Memorial Field (Dartmouth News). The project would have demolished and replaced the existing steel-framed concrete grandstand, leaving the arcaded brick facade on Crosby Street. It seems that the replacement supports, made of concrete, were actually cast and have been resting in a field in Vermont, awaiting an improvement in the college budget.

Here’s hoping the project will be restarted soon.

The Big Green Alert Blog has been providing extensive coverage of the installation of lights at Memorial Field (June 11, June 25 morning and afternoon, August 3) in advance of the first night game on October 1. The game will be against Penn and will begin at the extravagantly late hour of 6 pm. It will be Dartmouth’s first-ever night game at any field.

[Update 08.22.2011: Replaced line reading "The project recently was restarted" (thanks Big Green Alert Blog).]

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.

Contrary to what was reported here in March, it looks as if Dartmouth is going to demolish the 1921 Parker Apartments at 2 North Park Street:

The July 6 minutes of the Zoning Board of Adjustment (pdf) state that the board granted an exemption “to allow for the demolition of an existing apartment building and construction of a new building to be used as a student residence.” Curiously, the minutes list no applicant; it was presumably Dartmouth.

The building appears to be serviceable, and one wonders why the college did not decide to renovate it. The faculty apartment next door is older and smaller, but its renovation worked out well:

A graphical article based on research by Barbara Krieger in the July/August Alumni Magazine nicely covers a larger exhibit in the History Room in Baker. It is good to see the site for the amphitheater named as Murdough rather than the Bema, which is the site that that drawing is usually said to describe.

One or two quibbles: the 1931 courtyard Inn on page 53 was meant not not the Robinson Hall area but for the Spaulding Auditorium site, as is shown on the exhibit’s Dartmouth House Plot Plan. The gateway shown in the Larson drawing would have faced east, and Lebanon Street is depicted on the left of the drawing. (The main block of the current Inn was completed in 1967 rather than 1887.)

The focus on the Dartmouth Hall cupola is a bit of a wild goose chase. The plans depicted are by William Gamble and show a masonry building that was never built. Dartmouth Hall was built from some other plans, long since lost, that almost certainly showed a cupola. Those plans might or might not have been by Gamble and probably were not by Peter Harrison. (The cupola that Tucker admired was probably a somewhat different midcentury replacement for the original.)

Here is an image that did not make it into the article, a pre-Leverone proposal for a field house by Eggers & Higgins:

Wow. That is a view to the southeast from above the gym. South Park Street runs behind the field house, and the field in the upper right corner is the site of the later Leverone Field House.

The article quotes Eisenhower on “what a college ought to look like.” Conan O’Brien recently paraphrased this commentary while adding something of his own:

It’s absolutely beautiful here, though. It is the quintessential college cam-… American college campus. It does look like a movie set.

(Video, at 1:27.)

The Dartmouth reports that the college plans extensive renovations to the frame apartment house at 2 North Park Street:

The Parker Apartments, named for Joel Parker of the Class of 1811, Chief Justice of New Hampshire, were designed by Larson & Wells and built in 1921.

The school plans to install the Alpha Phi sorority in place of the twelve apartments now in the building. No architect has been selected, according to The Dartmouth. This will follow the similar project for the nearby Parkside.

[Update 08.13.2011: It looks like the building will be demolished.]

Smith & Vansant Architects now have a page detailing their extensive reconstruction of and addition to the Zeta Psi house.

The college is looking for a site on which to build a house for the Alpha Phi sorority (The Dartmouth).

The Dartmouth has a photo of the new modular Sigma Phi Epsilon house.

Wallace Harrison’s Hopkins Center is not just the latest in a long line of buildings planned for the spot south of the Green, it is the third of three theater complexes honoring Ernest Martin Hopkins proposed for that site. The first was designed in the late 1930s, and the second was a refreshed version of the first put out after the war, both by architect Jens Larson. The postwar version was put on hold, and by the time momentum increased again in the early 1950s, Larson had left, the Georgian idiom had gone out of fashion, and new people (notably Nelson Rockefeller) had become involved.

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A 1947 film about Dartmouth made available by the college has several shots of a large model of Larson’s postwar Hopkins Center design. The shots begin about 9:38 into the film.

The men shown discussing the model are identified as Treasurer Halsey C. Edgerton and advisory building committee chairman Professor Russell Larmon, with Hopkins Center Committee executive secretary Robert Haig also appearing.

This plan of the 1939 version is marked with the locations of the photos below. (The plan and a section are from Warner Bentley’s article “The Dartmouth Theatre,” Theatre Arts Monthly 22:4 (April 1939), 306-309.)

The narrator tells us that the proposed $3.5 million Ernest Martin Hopkins War Memorial Center will have a main auditorium seating 3,000 and ancillary spaces for music, drama, radio, “and allied activities.” When the present Hop was built, the site was enlarged, the film and broadcast functions were reduced or eliminated, and the auditorium was reduced and swapped with the theater at the bottom of the site. Perhaps the most notable difference is in the way the projects treated College Street: the model in the film not only preserves the street but places the entrance to its Little Theatre on it.

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News notes on construction projects old and new:

• An anonymous donation has named the fitness center recently installed in the old gymnasium space at the top of Alumni Gym for former Trustee Charles Zimmerman ’23 Tu ’24 (The Dartmouth, Bloomberg).
• An article in the Valley News on Harris Trail at Hanover and the Class of 1966 Lodge.
• Health Facilities Management has named the DHMC complex an “icon” and the subject of one of its case studies. The SBRA announcement notes the hospital’s adoption of the shopping mall form.
• For an example of a remarkable and appropriate setting for a Beverly Pepper sculpture that shares some of the attributes of Thel, see the Weisslers’ amphitheater in New York (New York Times). See also the BLDGBLOG post on Buried Buildings.
• A building-related issue of The Mirror has some details on the Life Sciences Center.
• One hopes that the OPDC will get the chance to add a Class of 1953 Commons page to its list of projects.
• Another Titcomb Cabin update.

Hidden in a story about Fahey-McLane in The Dartmouth is this information:

As part of the renovations, the booths and platforms were removed from Homeplate, increasing the dining capacity of the space, according to students who had used the renovated facility.

[...]

Construction will continue until the estimated completion date in Fall 2011, according to a June update.

A later story has a photo of the new Homeplate. It’s hard to remember what it looked like with the risers in place.

[Update 10.19.2010: The Mirror has more details about what's moving where.]

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.

The “Fuller Audits” of house compliance with town safety codes have led to a variety of responses over the past eight or so years, from Gamma Delta Chi’s minimal fire escape to the demolition of Sigma Phi Epsilon. (Phi Tau’s Fuller Audit played a role in its demolition as well.) Most organizations have added a bay or two to the end of the house to enclose a fire stair.

One of the most visible and insightful projects is the one recently completed by Zeta Psi (photos, more). Jens Larson’s firm designed the original house to face north toward Webster Avenue, away from the campus. Smith & Vansant Architects added a gabled portico to the rear, acknowledging the fact that most people approach from that direction.

Here it was under construction, from the Avenue side:

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 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.

Thayer Dining Hall

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.

Detail of photo of model of 53 Commons, designed by Moore Ruble Yudell with Bruner/Cott, from 1953 Commons Sketches

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.

Detail of planning alternate 1a from Kieran Timberlake Basis of Design

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.]

Now that the Spaulding Auditorium loading docks have been reconfigured (see the Google Street View of the construction — Hanover is now available in Street View, by the way), the Visual Arts Center can go ahead as planned. William A. Berry & Son, Inc. is managing the construction. The architects’ project page has not returned yet.

Brewster Hall has been demolished, and Clement Hall will be torn down during the first week in February (The Dartmouth).

The White River Junction railroad station is for sale. The sale site has photos and plans. The building is an approximate contemporary and formal cousin of Thayer Dining Hall, by the same firm, and can seem like an outpost of the campus for students arriving by rail.