Dartmo.

I. A recent one-paragraph review.

One alum quoted in the Alumni Council’s annual report (pdf) stated:

The north campus is appalling. The buildings look like something from USC and it is barren of trees. Further, the buildings pointlessly drift off to the right, making it an unsatisfying prospect. Seriously, from Berry north they need to plant several thousand trees to soften and obscure this severe, inappropriate landscape.

There is something worth discussing here. The unusual wording itself creates a number of questions:

1. What does “north campus” mean? Is it the area around Kemeny, the stretch from Berry to Moore, or the stretch all the way up to Gilman? The word “severe” in reference to the landscape suggests that he* is referring to the Kemeny area, which has low granite walls. But who knows?

2. How quickly are trees supposed to grow? Berry Row was recently a construction site. One supposes the same trees are to a) provide general natural beauty (“The north campus is barren of trees”) and b) obscure a landscape.

3. The buildings drift “pointlessly” to the right: does this mean that the buildings fail to lead to a point, such as the still-unbuilt terminus of the Berry Row axis, or does it mean that the alignment of the row should follow an unbending north-south line no matter what goes on in the surrounding streets? It is obvious that the curve in the line of buildings traces of the historic curve in the town’s street grid, which in turn follows the bend in the river.

4. Is the USC comparison useful? The rather attractive buildings of USC. do not look similar to the buildings of Berry Row and do not seem to have been designed by Moore’s firm, unlike, say, certain buildings of UCLA, UCSB (Kresge College, 1971), UCSC, and Berkeley (Haas School of Business, 1995).

II. Another take.

Kemeny/Haldeman seems successful. The building’s street facade is admirably modest in scale; the twin porticos are delightful. The way the building works with Sherman to bracket Carson Hall is important and it seems well done. The towers on the inside of the block are not as notable as they could be and disappoint somewhat. The handling of the termination of the main tower’s north facade might be a mistake: it is not much of a tower if it does not even meet the ridge of the roof.

The eccentric footprint of the McLaughlin Cluster has the potential to be too quirky for its own good, but it works; the apparently arbitrary inflection is not bothersome.

A brochure-quality view of McLaughlin captured by Google Street View looks to the south toward the towers of Sudikoff and Baker. The use of granite and white-painted brick, reminiscent of Dartmouth Hall, is appealing.

Street View has a photo of the hefty sculptural light-pier at Bildner’s front entrance.

The absence of shutters on McLaughlin is a bit of a let-down, but shutters seem to be the litmus test for traditionalism in Dartmouth buildings these days: Fahey-McLane was meant to be shutterless but got them anyway, according to one account, because they were important to a donor.

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* Really a “he”? He seems to be under 40 (the youthful use of “seriously”) but might view himself as having the tastes of someone over 60 (the use of the antiquated “prospect” instead of “view”).

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.

A remote tour of recent construction via Google Street View images made around August 4, 2009, judging from the Hop’s marquee:

• The north end addition to Theta Delta Chi (view to southeast);
• The east end addition to Gile and rear addition to Hitchcock (view to north showing Gile getting a new copper roof);
• Fahey Hall (view with Butterfield);
• The redone Tuck Drive/Tuck Mall intersection (view to north; the Google Maps aerial is older and shows Fahey-McLane under construction);
• The stair addition to the west end of Bones Gate (view to south showing unobtrusive one-bay addition);
• The Zeta Psi addition (view to south showing front of building with addition under construction);
• The Chi Gamma Epsilon fire stair (view to north showing roofed but unenclosed fire escape — wonder why other houses didn’t do this if they could get away with it);
• Kemeny-Haldeman (view to east; Carson terminates Webster Avenue and is framed by Haldeman and Carpenter);
• The addition to Tabard (view to south showing rear of building; the Google driver went down this unnamed alley by the Choates before thinking better of it);
• The addition to Phi Delta Alpha (view to south showing rear of interesting, almost agricultural addition);
• The new Phi Tau (view to southeast showing side; the end view to the north shows the building’s interesting proportions);
• Berry Row (view “down” to the south);
• The McLaughlin Cluster (view of “outside” to the northeast; views “down” to southwest and “up” to northeast).
• The New Hampshire Hall additions (view to southwest showing east end addition); and
• “Whittemore Green” behind Thayer School (views of landscape including flowers and curving paths; hmmm).

The Dartmouth gives an update on the construction of the Berry Row landscaping.

The central path looks as if it will curve slightly, as shown in the OPDC plan, rather than take a straight shot as suggested by the Burck plan.

The OPDC continues its generous photographic documentation of the Bradley/Gerry demolition: one view shows Kemeny with Berry in the background, as it was meant to be seen, although just a little bit of Bradley is still standing.

The campus urban space north of Berry Library does not seem to have an official name yet. Although it is smaller and less formally designed than the Green or Tuck Mall, it is analogous to those two spaces in the way it extends from Baker Library, and Dartmouth is about to give its landscape an ambitious redesign by Richard Burck Associates. The space needs an official name.

Here’s hoping it gets called Berry Row, a name that several people have suggested already.* The name is conservative, and it makes sense: the three buildings that will line the west side of the space (Kemeny Hall, some future building, and Moore Hall) are analogous to the three-part Dartmouth Row and its progeny, Fayerweather Row and Massachusetts Row. Each of those rows creates a public space in front of it that may also be known by the name of the row.

Particular sites within the space still may have their own names, such as the proposed Alumni Plaza (pdf).

• [William D. Brawley?], Interface 29:2 (Winter 1998), 10 (pdf).
• Alex Shartsis, “New Math Building Will Honor Kemeny,” The Dartmouth (22 July 1998).
• William D. Brawley, “For Some People, It’s Becoming Increasingly Difficult to Tell Where Traditional Libraries Stop and Traditional Computing Services Begin,” Dartmouth College Library Bulletin (November 1998).

The Kemeny/Haldeman project page notes that the patterns in the building’s decorative brick display a Fibonacci sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.). The pattern comprises a field of soldier-course bricks from which certain bricks protrude.

The Math Department’s previous headquarters, Bradley Hall (connected to Gerry Hall as the “Shower Towers”), was known to display some pattern in the arrangement of its blue, green, and white tiles, although what it represented did not seem to be commonly known.

[Update 12.31.2006: information on pattern added.]

The creation of Berry Row as a campus space is making progress as the landscaping for Kemeny/Haldeman, designed by Richard Burck Associates, gets underway.

The Dartmouth and Vox have covered a number of building-related topics recently:

• Zoning for the 53 Commons north of Maynard Street
• The dedication of Kemeny Hall and the Haldeman Centers on the Kiewit site
• The Real Estate Office, which is redeveloping the block south of the Hop
• The Faheys’ gifts
• The Records Management office, which has moved out of Centerra to Etna Road in Lebanon:
  
  

Google’s recent acquisition of the garage where it began as a company in 1998 and the preservation of the garage where Hewlett and Packard began working in 1938 point out the importance of documenting Bradley and Gerry Halls and marking their sites after they are demolished, since they have some role in the history of computing. Demolition begins as soon as this month.

Bradley is not, however, the place where Kemeny and Kurtz and others created BASIC in 1964, as reported here in “A Plea for the Shower Towers.” A College news release states that BASIC was invented in College Hall, and that is indeed where the school put its GE-235 during February of 1964 after taking delivery of it. BASIC first ran that May and the school moved the machines to the existing Bradley Hall later.

The possibly-1860s granite post mentioned earlier as surviving the Kemeny Hall construction has been pulled, but the fact that it remains at the construction site encourages the speculation that it will be replaced when the building is finished:

A granite post on North Main Street (visible to the left of the pickup in a Math Department photo) has been left up during the construction of the latest building adjacent to it, Kemeny Hall. The post appears to be the last surviving element of confectioner E.K. Smith’s 1868 house.

[Update 12.31.2006: construction photos showed the post lifted out of the ground, and photos of the completed Kemeny Hall do not show it.]

• It seems that the the Facilities Planning Office (previously the Office of Facilities Planning?) has become the Office of Planning, Design, and Construction (see the website of September 2004, showing old name while accessing current images; the name of the site directory is still “~fpo”).

  The new name is clearer and more informative, but nothing beats the style of the design office that is associated with the Capitol in Washington: The Architect of the Capitol.

• The walls are up in the McLaughlin Cluster (webcam looking south from Gilman), being built by Engelberth
• Kemeny/Haldeman is in its yellow stage and the steel framing for the tower (no name apparently announced yet) is up (photos from the Math Department project site).
• The Dartmouth has more on Fred Wilson’s exhibition in the Hood and about the Hood.
• Skypic has available aerial views (1 | 2) of Dartmouth.

Buzzflood points to a Vox article noting that Kemeny/Haldeman was topped off Friday, July 15.   The Math Department has photos of the tree and flag atop the building’s yet-unnamed tower.

The Valley News reports on the largest construction boom in recent memory, with $180 million in College and Town projects underway.

Nearly two thousand people donated a total of $10.7 million to win a $1 million challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation toward the construction of Kemeny/Haldeman, the school has announced.

For $5 million, you may still name the building’s tower, depicted at right in a rendering of the building.   A special floor plan (1.5mb pdf) designates some of the building’s other nameable features.

Photos from the Math Department depict the construction of the foundation and basement of Kemeny/Haldeman.

The Review has posted its latest issue, which includes a list of projects underway, some stats for the north campus, and a thoughtful article on the new construction by Joseph Rago, who quotes Dean Redman on the planning of the new dorms north of Maynard: “We learned from our mistakes in East Wheelock[.]”

Remember, you heard about the “mini-mansard” here first!   (Actually, mini-mansard is probably not the right word, since the roof does not slope at the gable ends: perhaps it is a cryptogambrel?)