After postponing the decision, the Board of Trustees finally voted on June 12 to build the Visual Arts Center on Lebanon Street, designed by Machado & Silvetti Associates (renderings). Dartmouth’s largest-ever gift, a $50 million donation from an anonymous family, will allow the project to go forward.

Work on reconfiguring the nearby loading dock of Spaulding Auditorium to make space for the Arts Plaza begins on June 15, according to The Dartmouth. Studios will move from Clement to 4 Currier Street after it opens this fall, Clement (and Brewster) will be demolished, and construction on the Center will begin in the spring of 2010 and conclude in the fall of 2012 (capital projects schedule pdf).

About 600 individual projects by Lamb & Wheeler/Rich have been identified for the book. Progress is occurring in the Manhattan projects, while the Colgate University/family projects remain mysterious. Illustrations are beginning to come in, and a tentative publication date of early 2012 has been established.

Former Librarian of the College and Dean of Libraries Edward Connery Lathem of the Class of 1951 died on May 15th (Vox). I never got the opportunity to meet him, but I remember seeing him working in Rauner and noticing the respect he received from everyone.

Since 1983, according to Vox, Lathem also held the title of Usher of Dartmouth College, one of the offices established by the Charter but not filled at the time or at any time people could remember. Lathem also revived the office of Steward at the time. One hopes the Board will consider appointing a new Usher to succeed Lathem, and a new Steward if that office is not occupied.

The Dartmouth reports on the $2.8m renovation of the President’s House on Webster Avenue. President-Elect Kim and his family will live at 6 Rope Ferry Road house until the work ends. The project is not on the OPDC’s projects page or the capital projects schedule (pdf).

Here’s a thought: since the house’s location on Webster Avenue has always been a drawback, why not use the house for some appropriate institute, or sell it for use as a new Edgerton House? It would be close to Aquinas House and the Roth Center. A new President’s House could be built on Choate Road in place of Brown Hall. Its public face on the road would respect the other large houses there, while its academic face would look directly down the Mass Row axis. It would be quieter and yet more connected to the College.

The Valley News tells the story of the remarkable early-fifties murals in the good old (National-Register listed) Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction: they were painted by Peter Michael Gish of Dartmouth’s class of 1949. Gish is a former Marine who served as a combat artist as recently as Somalia.

The Valley News article on President Wright’s retirement focuses on the South Block project as the most substantial sign of the College’s influence on the Town, and notes its success. The article also mentions that President Emeritus Wright will have an office in South Block.

The Dartmouth reports that Linda Snyder, Harvard’s associate dean for physical resources and planning, is the new (and first) Chief Facilities Officer at Dartmouth. This position is novel because Snyder will head not only the Office of Planning, Design & Construction (formerly the Facilities Planning Office) but also the [Department of] Facilities[,] Operations & Management (formerly Buildings & Grounds).

Dartmouth’s new Senior Vice President and Strategic Advisor, Steven Kadish, received a Master of City Planning degree from MIT in 1982 according to the news release.

Titcomb Cabin, the one on Gilman Island, just below the bridge, burned to the ground on May 6. Titcomb was built in 1952 as a replacement for the Ledyard cabins up and down the river that were flooded when Wilder Dam raised the level of the river. Power company employees even helped build it.

The Zahm Courtyard, the sunken and largely stone-lined space between the Inn and the Hop, was redesigned specifically as a site for war memorials a few years ago by Saucier + Flynn. (The school’s WWII/Korea memorial plaque had moved there a few years before that.) Now Dartmouth has added its 9/11 memorial.