Dartmo.

Yale has been described as having more buildings with street addresses than any other school, proportionally at least. That might have been the case 15 years ago, but in the age of E911 address requirements, there should not be a campus building anywhere in the country without a street number.

This is interesting: Dartmouth’s Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, which basically is part of the old Med School campus along College Street, had its street number changed from 76 College Street to 78 College Street (DAM Jan/Feb 2012, 14 (pdf)).

I. The Dartmouth Company

Curiously, there is a Boston-based real estate company called The Dartmouth Company. It makes good use of serifs and a dark green color on its website and seems to operate in New Hampshire. See also the more obvious reference to the college at the Dartmouth Education Foundation.

II. The Arms of Dartmouth’s Schools

The Dartmouth College website seems to be doing something new when it describes the institution as a collection of five apparently equal schools:

The harmonization and use of the schools’ shields is commendable.

But this arrangement seems to contradict the rule that Dartmouth is the college. The “Associated Schools” — Tuck, Thayer, Medical, and lately the graduate programs — are associated with the college but are not coequals beneath a central university administration. Because “Dartmouth” is the undergraduate college, there is no need to put the letters “CA&S” before one’s class year, for example.

Tom Owen writes in The Dartmouth today:

In the discussion following Kim’s address, Provost Carol Folt said there is a “complicated set of reasons” for the gap between Dartmouth’s national and international rankings. Two of the major contributing factors are Dartmouth’s lack of a “university” title and Dartmouth’s focus on undergraduates, both of which have hurt Dartmouth’s international reputation.

[...]

Although large-scale changes may be necessary in the next decade, alumni must see new developments as part of an institutional history of adaptation rather than as a threat to tradition, Kim said.

The school’s Quartomillennium celebration in 2019 would be a good time to launch something new.

[01.25.2012 update: Education Foundation link added.]

• 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.

Download

Download a pdf version of William Carroll Hill’s 1901 book, Dartmouth Traditions.

About the Book

William Carroll Hill (1875-1943?), of Nashua, N.H., received his Bachelor of Letters degree, a degree offered only between 1884 and 1904, in 1902. He was the historian of his class and wrote the Chronicles section of the the 1902 Class Day volume, a book that the printer gave the appearance as Dartmouth Traditions. Hill became an antiquarian, genealogist, and historian and apparently wrote a history of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Dartmouth Traditions was published when Hill was a junior. The book is not really about traditions and probably would be better titled Dartmouth Worthies. It is a collection of essays written by students and alumni. While the essays on Daniel Webster and other known personages are not very useful, some essays appear the contain information that is only available in this book. Examples are the report on the investigation into the history of the Lone Pine and the first-person account of the drowning death of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s son.

About this Project

The transcription of this somewhat hard-to-find book began in 2003. The book has since become available in Google Books, which somewhat defeats the purpose of the project. The Google Books version has the great advantage of reproducing the attractive typography of the original, but its computer transcription is not as accurate as that of the version presented here.

[Update 05.13.2011: The Rauner Library Blog has a post on Hill, highlighting the Stowe episode.]

[Update 12.21.2010: Link to pdf posted.]

The Valley News reports that the outpatient surgery center (2008-2010) is going ahead but confirms that the Koop Medical Science Complex is on hold.

The November 13 letter from Barry Scherr and Adam Keller (pdf) stated: “We will complete planning already under way for projects which would then require additional financial resources before proceeding to the next phase: Class of 1953 Commons and the C. Everett Koop Medical Science Complex.” The three-part complex planned for the south end of the hospital is shown in a November 3, 2006 announcement and is explained in detail on its capital campaign page.

The Class of 1978 Life Sciences Building is taking the place of Strasenburgh Hall, a cramped Medical School office building. Strasenburgh was built as a dormitory, and for that reason it was the only building on the School’s “original” (1950-1980) campus not designed by SBRA: the dormitory, like its Tuck School counterpart Buchanan Hall, was designed by the consulting architects of the College, Campbell Aldrich & Nulty.

Dartmouth Medicine magazine (Winter 2006) has an article by Jennifer Durgin on Strasenburgh’s past, and it includes an excellent aerial photo of the medical campus. Strasenburgh’s small scale and busy faceting made it one of the least unappealing buildings of the group.

One of the new building groups out at the hospital is the Koop Center (SBRA, 2008-2010). See the floorplan (pdf). A view of the interior of the volume joining the center’s two wings, called LeBaron Commons, is available as well (pdf). One of the wings has a name that seems to be fairly new: the Williamson Translational Research Building.

For reference, this big addition seems to be at the bottom of the current hospital map (pdf).

A perspective drawing of the complex suggests the direction of the Medical School’s “Future Campus” (pdf).

Dartmouth’s steam tunnel continues to stretch northward. A thumbnail sketch:

• From Heating Plant along the Green to the Berry site (mid-1990s)
• From Berry site up Berry Row to Moore (around 1998)
• From Moore, tap into historic hospital tunnel network to reach Kellogg Auditorium and adjoining chiller plant (early 2000s?)
• From Kellogg, run northward behind Medical School to future Life Sciences Building site (2007).

More detailed plans and photos of a model of the Life Sciences Building are available. The building has a bit of the New Deal Post Office about it (see the Post Office of Old Chester, Pa.), while the gabled greenhouse gives it some of the feeling of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and thus Pope’s Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, D.C.

The OPDC’s updated Construction Maps show the north campus finally knitting together.

The Life Sciences Building looks like it will serve as a gateway building, form a wall defining two of the bounds of the campus, and partially enclose an informal quadrangle at the Medical School.

Trumbull-Nelson’s Constructive Images (Fall 2006 describes additions to Sachem Village and the renovation of Gilman Hall.

The Medical School will add two new wings to its LeBaron Commons in Lebanon, in association with the hospital: the new Koop Complex, designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, will comprise one wing for translational research and another for the Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences (press release | fundraising announcement | building description).

Architecture critic Donald Maurice Kreis has a thorough review in Dartmouth Medicine of the most recent expansion of the DHMC, a massive 2002-2006 project. The article also includes several short videos.

In a speech to the faculty on October 31, President Wright announced: “I think we can confidently say that there has never been as much construction at any one time in our history.” Below is an excerpt from his speech as it relates to each future building project, with speculation about the architects added. In the context of architecture as a world art form, the most important project is the first listed here; the project that is most important to the school is listed second:

• “We are already in the planning stage for the visual arts center and will be continuing that process during the coming months.”
  –Designer: Machado & Silvetti

• “In the area of student life we are also in the final stages of planning a new dining hall north of campus, and a replacement dining hall at the current Thayer Dining site. The Class of 1953 has provided the funding for the north of Maynard Street facility, which will include space for graduate students. The dining projects will be staggered and will cause some disruption as we will need to complete the north of Maynard project before we begin at the Thayer site.”
  –Class of ’53 Dining Hall designer: presumably Moore Ruble Yudell
  –New Thayer Dining Hall designer: possibly Centerbrook

• “The Tuck School has plans for a living and learning center and they are moving forward with that aggressively. They already have most of the funding in place and are working on construction design, with the intent of starting construction during the second half of next year.”
  –Designer: Goody Clancy

• “The Medical School is moving ahead with their plans for a translational research building to be constructed near the hospital in Lebanon.”
  –Designer: possibly SBRA

• “The Grasse Road III project, currently before the town for approval, will provide more affordable housing than can be found in the local market.”
  –Designer: unknown, possibly William Rawn Associates

• “The life sciences building has been a challenge both in terms of fundraising and planning. Our original notion of a shared laboratory facility with the Medical School has evolved, and we are now thinking about a facility on the Hanover campus that will be primarily for the Biology Department, with only some classroom and meeting space for the Medical School. While this remains one of my very top priorities for fund raising, we are also looking at ways to use debt financing and internal resources to ensure that this project moves forward in a timely fashion.”
• “I have asked the Provost to review plans for renovation of the Dartmouth Row buildings and Carpenter Hall.”

DMS has finished its Doctors’ Office Building at DHMC and is planning LeBaron Commons.

Meanwhile DHMC has been adding new floors, a parking garage, a helicopter hangar, and other facilities in a $224 million expansion project.

The University of Virginia is preserving by moving its 1857 infirmary, now an Air Force R.O.T.C. headquarters, in part because of the building’s important association with medical history.   Dartmouth College destroyed its Medical School in 1963: the building had been used continuously for medical education since 1811 and was so important to the Medical School that it still appears on the school’s logo.