Category Archives: Hop, the

About the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College and proposed additions to it and its environs.

Yes, Wilson will become the Hood’s main entrance

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Dartmouth is putting into effect that Centerbrook master plan noted here on the 4th.

The college took proposals from four firms and today announced the selection of Tod Williams Billie Tsien as the architects for the project (Office of Public Affairs Press Release, Times ArtsBeat).

The project will add museum space behind Wilson Hall, renovate Wilson itself, and turn Wilson’s great arched entrance into the main entrance for the whole Hood Museum complex.

It is difficult to emphasize too much the importance of Wilson’s arch. When Dartmouth published some of Robert Frost’s reminiscences about how he decided, in Wilson Library, to become a poet, it titled the pamphlet “Under That Arch” (American Memory).

Luckily the granite lintel bearing Wilson’s name is not very prominent and can be left in place. A new glass entrance pavilion projecting from the arch or attached to the front of the building will be able to display Hood’s name. The firm’s David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (image) suggests one approach the firm could use.

During 1996 I spent about a month living in a Williams/Tsien building at U.Va. (Hereford College, 1992). I had some reservations about the overall project, a residential college on the back of a hill far from the center of campus (map). Because it is sited on a slope, it has trouble enclosing the sort of meaningful outdoor spaces you would expect: it is an arrangement of objects in a park. But I was impressed by the cool and serious Modernism of the individual buildings and their willingness to adopt a monumental scale when required (images from Tinmanic’s Flickr photostream and Wikipedia) . I liked the use of what I assume are local brick and slate on the exterior, and although the cinderblock interior was not ideal for a dormitory, it had a sternness that would be appropriate for a museum.

The firm’s work is serious and purposeful rather than frivolous, and in small doses it could create an exciting tension with Wilson’s Romanesque arches, the Hood’s Postmodern whimsy, and the Hop’s Modernist Expressionism.

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[Update 05.12.2013: Two links to Flash content on TWBTA site remove.]

[Update 07.07.2012: The Hood has a roundup of coverage of the announcement. Thanks to Alex Hanson for the quotes in the Valley News article (Hood-supplied pdf).]

More on the Inn addition

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The rising cost of the Inn addition has been controversial lately, and The Dartmouth now has an article about it.

It seems strange to say that “[g]reat effort has been made to preserve the Inn’s exterior” when that exterior is undistinguished at best. Perhaps this is a reaction to negative comments from alumni, cited in a previous post.

The four buildings involved here may be seen in the plan provided by Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.:

  • The west wing of the Inn (Larson & Wells, 1923), built with a donation from Randolph McNutt, is historic but undistinguished. It will contain the prefunction room and restrooms as shown in the plan.

  • The Lang Building (Larson, 1937) faces Main Street at the southwest corner of the site (the upper right of the plan). It is both historic and well done and is worth preserving. Its upper level will be given over to hotel rooms.

  • The Hopkins Center (Harrison & Abramowitz, 1959-1962) is a notable building by a world-class architect and must be modified carefully.

  • The main block of the Hanover Inn (William Benjamin Tabler, 1966-1967) is both unhistoric and undistinguished. While fairly effective at disguising the great bulk of the hotel, the Inn is only nominally Georgian in style.

Detail of plan of addition to Hanover Inn by Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.

Detail of plan of Inn addition by Cambridge Seven.

The comment about preservation is especially interesting in light of the fact that one of the Cambridge Seven images proposes to add shutters to the windows of the main block:

Detail of perspective view of Hanover Inn by Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.

Detail of perspective view of Inn by Cambridge Seven.

(Another view by the firm shows the Inn without shutters added.)

Big Green Alert: The Blog has a couple of construction photos.

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[Update 11.17.2012: Three broken links to C7A images removed, two replaced with generic links to firm page.]

The Inn addition as a Hop addition

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The Inn project, planned last spring (The Dartmouth, The Dartmouth), is getting under way.

The Inn Blog describes the

addition of multiple new suites and guest rooms plus the refurbishment of all existing sleeping rooms. The first floor will house a ballroom and junior ballroom with the current location of the Daniel Webster Room to become a pre-function space. The restaurant will be relocated to the Hayward Lounge and will include additional private dining rooms. Finally a half dozen or so “smart” conference rooms will be added on the lower level rounding out the renovations.

The architects are Cambridge Seven Associates, with interiors designed by the Bill Rooney Studio.

Renderings describe the most interesting part of the project, an infill addition in the Zahm Courtyard:

A crisp glass box floats within the historic arms of the old building, integrating a new 3,500 sf ballroom into the existing structure.

This glass box is in fact a new entrance to the Hopkins Center. The glass box is just where it should be, since, in some ways, the Zahm entry has always been the real entrance to the Hop. One might regret only the fact that the new entrance rests on the floor of the courtyard instead of using an interior ramp or stair to rise to the level of the street. The project has required the shifting of the Hinman Boxes (image).

The architects have made this entrance pavilion into a miniature version of the Hop’s most prominent entrance facade. There is no marquee here, but there is a glazed ground level topped by a little porch roof and above it a high, glazed second level divided into attenuated bays.

Behind the glazed chamber is a new “exterior” wall, presumably marking the edge of the ballroom. The architects initially intended the wall to be of brick but switched to zinc-coated steel panels (Planning Board minutes Sept. 6 (pdf)). The less-expensive material will probably provide a better visual marker of the joint between the Inn and the Hop.

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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to C7A renderings replaced.]

Designers of the Inn expansion identified

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Contrary to the implication on this site last month, the renovation and expansion of the Hanover Inn are indeed the work of Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. The firm designed a stylish renovation of the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, N.H.

Interior design for the Inn is being handled by New York firm Bill Rooney Studio, Inc. Some snippets of the firm’s renderings show an interesting use of inscribed lines and geometric patterns.

The ongoing work has shifted some students’ Hinman Boxes, The Dartmouth reports.

Although the main block of the Inn is not even fifty years old, the Inn has been listed with the National Trust’s Historic Hotels of America. The Web information includes this novel tidbit:

Before Dartmouth College became co-ed, the fourth floor of the Hanover Inn was a single women’s dormitory. The Inn provided chaperones for the single female guests. The Hanover Inn is the oldest continuous business in the state of New Hampshire.

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[Update 01.13.2013: Broken link to Radisson replaced.]

Adding to the Hanover Inn

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Dartmouth Now and print newsletters are publishing a rendering of the future Inn that shows a new porte-cochere, a modest expansion onto the Terrace, and, almost out of sight at the left, an expansion onto part of the Zahm Garden.

The rendering is by Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., although it is not clear that the project will be undertaken by that firm.

The expansion could be very subtle and intriguing. It will put hotel rooms above the Gap on Main Street, in the existing upper level of the Lang Building. It will convert the Hopkins Center’s Strauss Gallery, at the northwest corner of the Hop, where the corridor makes a right-angle turn, into an entrance to the Inn (March 3, 2011 Building Code Advisory Committee minutes (pdf)).

[Update 07.17.2011: The Dartmouth reported Friday that the Inn has decided to close during construction, from December 2011 through April 12, 2012.]

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to Radisson replaced.]

The other Hopkins Center

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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.

1. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

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.)

photo locator map

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.

2. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

3. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

4. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

5. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

6. photo of model of proposed Hopkins Center at Dartmouth from 1947 film

dartmo 15 logo

Small items of interest

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  • There is an unusual aerial view of the north end of campus in the Dartmouth Medicine magazine. It is a view from the north looking south, and it hints at the way Main Street used to cross the Green on a diagonal. The photo makes the Green’s northeast-southwest path appear to be an extension of College Street.
  • There are far to many changes in planning, development, and regulation of suburban sites in the Upper Valley to keep up with on line. Here is just one example: the Valley News reported on a new development proposed for the edge of Centerra.
  • Naturally Vermont has a Marble Museum (New Hampshire does not appear to have a Granite Museum…) and it is mentioned in a Rutland Herald story on the pervasive use of marble at Middlebury and other schools.
  • The completed addition to Spaulding Auditorium includes extra storage for the Band’s instruments, notes the construction management firm. Interesting.
  • The Valley News had a story on blazes marking the Appalachian Trail in downtown Hanover.
  • The Dartmouth reports that double rooms in Fahey and McLane will be converted to triples. It seems only a couple of year ago that Fahey and McLane were built to allow the rooms in other dorms to decompress from triples to doubles.

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[Update 01.13.2013: Broken link to construction management firm (Berry) removed.]

Graphic design and signage

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The library had a contest to select a design for its new favicon/logo, formerly the tilted D. The winners (pdf) are surprisingly heraldic.

This might have been mentioned before, but the staff in the DMS shield has been genericized. It used to be an Indian-head cane.

Dartmouth has its own typeface, or at least the capital letters for a typeface, writes the Rauner blog. Will Carter designed Dartmouth title (Rauner’s sample) around 1969 for use in inscriptions in the teak panels in the Hopkins Center. The present king of collegiate typefaces seems to be Matthew Carter’s ca. 2008 Yale (see also Yale Daily News article), although Frederic Goudy’s 1938 University Old Style for Berkeley is an earlier example that lives on in Richard Beatty’s 1994 redrawing as UC Berkeley Old Style.

For years, Smith College tapped into certain associations (unintentionally?) by using ITC Garamond, which paralleled the Apple Garamond of Apple Computer advertisements at the time (Wikipedia on Apple typography; Smith’s current Visual Identity Program). The quality of the design itself is important, and distinctiveness is not everything (see the Typotheque article on the modification of Brioni for Al Gore).

With the Visual Arts Center about to go up next door to the Hopkins Center, it’s time to finally commission an artist (Colossal Media, say) to paint signs on the Hop’s largely-blank rear walls. The walls of Spaulding Auditorium (Street View) and the huge fly loft at the rear of the Moore Theater are ripe for advertisement.




Sign concept for west facade of studio row, Hopkins Center (partially based on a photo from http://philip.greenspun.com).

The destruction of a genuine ghost sign at the unique industrial/commercial campus of the University of Washington, Tacoma recently caused some controversy (News Tribune).

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[Update 11.17.2012: Broken link to Smith program fixed.]

Brewster Hall demolished, Clement Hall is next

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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).

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[Update 03.31.2013: Broken link to Berry & Son removed.]

Machado & Silvetti revise Arts Center design

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New renderings of the Visual Arts Center have appeared on the Project Page. Where an early page by the firm stated an area of 80,000 square feet, and articles accompanying the initial renderings pegged the building at 96,500 to 99,500 square feet, the “revised program analysis,” surprisingly, identified a need for more area rather than less: it’s now at 105,000 square feet.

The November renderings show a building that seems to have the same basic form and numbers of bays as before. The renderings include plans for the first time. The idea of ground-level retail does not seem to have survived, but the artist-in-residence gets a fantastic perch in the lantern above the campus-side entrance.

Elevation drawings also emerge for the first time, along with contextual views from Lebanon Street and a site plan and photo of a model showing the plaza framed by Spaulding.

There are also images of a sectional model of the arts forum, which is the atrium close to the Lebanon Street entrance, and other views.

This building should look expensive.

[Update 01.10.2009: Two watercolors by Jeff Stikeman have been added.]

Visual Arts Center page on architects’ site

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The Dartmouth provided an update on the Visual Arts Center, and the designers have an unlinked project page that states:

A new facility for the college’s Studio Art and Film and Television departments, the Visual Art Center represents the consolidation in of two related programs for the first time in the college’s history. The new center occupies a prime location and consequently must function not only as an educational space, but also as a new entrance to the both the campus and the arts precinct. An 80,000 square foot building, stretching along a length of Lebanon Street from the Facility Operations and Management department to Spaulding Auditorium in the Hopkins Center, the new building is given a sizable portal that frames the existing Hood Museum complex and functions as a door to the south entrance of the campus. Commercial programs will mix with the educational functions along the street to further enhance the town’s Master Plan.

War Memorial Garden created

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The Zahm Memorial Garden, which filled the sunken space in front of the Hinman Boxes alongside the Inn, has been redesigned as the War Memorial Garden by Saucier + Flynn. The WWII/Korea memorial, a granite plaque, has occupied the end wall of the Inn since it was moved from under the Hood’s upper bridge in the early 1990s. The school moved the Vietnam Memorial, a sculpture, from the Collis Center to the garden. The Class of 1945 also gave the garden a plaque.

Hopland planning

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The firm of Jonathan Marvel ’82 (Rogers Marvel) has made available photos of a model of their master plan for the arts district (ca. 2002).   The design foresees addition to the east and west ends of Spaulding Auditorium, the replacement of the Hop studios (and Charles Moore’s Courtyard Cafe), and, most notably, an extension of the Hop’s entrance facade to the west that would double the width of that facade on the Green and provide much-needed infill for the gap in the street line.

The Hood Museum would be extended south to Lebanon Street.   A view to the southeast from near the site of Brewster Hall allows a glimpse through this Hood extension and into the courtyard.   Though a master plan is only a projection, the Visual Arts Building on Lebanon Street is in progress by Machado and Silvetti.

[Updated 08.30.2005.]

Visual arts center

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Dartmouth will build a new visual arts building on Lebanon Street east of the Hopkins Center according to a press release.   (See the Downtown Hanover Vision for a general idea of siting; Brewster Hall presumably will be demolished for this project.)   Studio Art and Film and Television Studies will move into the building when it is completed.   The Dartmouth reported during February 2004 that Machado and Silvetti Associates would design this building; the firm’s Matthew Oudens, project architect for an addition to the Getty Villa and the award-winning Allston Branch of the Boston Public Library (more images), is listed as the project architect.