Hopkins Center Expansion and Renovation Plans Just Released by Dartmouth College
Hopkins Center Expansion and Renovation Plans Just Released by Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College has released architectural design renderings and other details of its upcoming $88 million expansion and renovation of the Hopkins Center for the Arts, scheduled to begin at the end of 2022. It will add approximately 15,000 square feet of new space and transform the 55,000 square feet of the existing Center.
According to its April 7 press release: “The new design honors the original 1962 architecture by Wallace K. Harrison, the architect of New York City's Lincoln Center, maintaining the building’s overarching frame, distinctive arches, and other important spaces including the Top of the Hop, the lobby outside of Moore Theater, and Spaulding Auditorium, each of which will be renewed.”
A new wing will be added to the existing Hopkins Center on East Wheelock Street (photo, top) that will contain a glass-enclosed 130-seat recital hall with the latest acoustic technology and a view of Baker Library. Beneath the recital hall will be a dance studio. It is the first time that the Hop will have a space dedicated to dance rehearsals.
Apart from the new wing, the existing structure will be modernized. This includes changes to Spaulding Auditorium, the Top of the Hop, and the addition of a theater rehearsal lab.
The Courtyard Cafe will remain, as will current workshop space for ceramics, jewelry and woodworking. Hinman mailboxes—no longer used by students in this age of digital communication—will be removed, but presumably for historical and sentimental reasons, sections will be memorialized in the renovated structure. The Jaffe-Friede Gallery will be relocated to provide greater visibility.
A campaign has raised $50.1 million, some of it from supporters who graduated from Dartmouth and went on to have careers in the arts, like actor Connie Britton ‘89, who reflected on what the Hop has meant to her:
"My dreams of life in the performing arts were honed and solidified in every corner of the Hop, and the profound immersive opportunities of the place have certainly shaped everyone who's walked through it. So I am thrilled with Dartmouth’s commitment to continue and grow the Hop’s enduring and transformative legacy," says Britton, a four-time Emmy nominee and a Dartmouth trustee.
For further information, including more architectural renderings, please click here.
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