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Fanfare for Whitman College

Two-day dedication includes talk by architect Demetri Porphyrios

By Chip McCorkle
Special Writer
   Princeton University kicked off its two-day dedication of its newest residential college with a lecture by the project’s architect Wednesday night in its McCosh 50 lecture hall.
   Architect Demetri Porphyrios of Porphyrios Associates in London laid out much of his vision for the group of interconnected Collegiate Gothic buildings known as Whitman College.
   The college’s namesake is Meg Whitman, chief executive officer of eBay Inc. and graduate of the class of 1977.
   Ms. Whitman donated $30 million to the project, part of Princeton’s new four-year college initiative, which will allow students to live in residential colleges all four of their years at Princeton. Previously most joined private, off-campus eating clubs and lived in general upper class housing on campus.
   Mr. Porphyrios, who did graduate work in Princeton’s architecture department, spoke of how honored he felt upon the university selecting his firm from among 25 others to design the college.
   ”I will always cherish that moment,” he said, calling Whitman College perhaps the most important undertaking of his career.
   Mr. Porphyrios next remembered visiting the site, then a bank of tennis courts built into a downward-sloping landscape. He said he liked the courts but thought they “sat into the ground with an incredible sort of uneasiness” and wanted to restore the natural landscape of the area—thus the three split-level courtyards that comprise Whitman.
   The Collegiate Gothic style would fit in best with the rest of campus, Mr. Porphyrios thought, especially for those walking into Whitman from the northwest, where most of the residential buildings in that style are located.
   It was also important, he said, that each of Whitman’s buildings blend with the others, that they be “totally individual” and yet “speak the same language.”
   Speaking to a crowd of Whitman College donors, as well as alumni, trustees, faculty and students, Mr. Porphyrios described how his familiarity with the campus and its traditions informed his design.
   For example, the long procession of alumni at Commencement known as the P-Rade concludes at Elm Drive, near where Whitman College now stands. Mr. Porphyrios said he wanted to strengthen this tradition by opening up the college’s courtyards to that side of the facility, providing a beautiful view for P-Rade participants as they proceed down Elm Drive every year.
   Mr. Porphyrios also said he sought to restore the impressive welcome the campus’s famous Blair Arch gave riders of the Dinky when its tracks ran that far north into campus — hence the dry moat and bridge on Whitman’s western edge.
   The moat and bridge also give a sense “of passage, of division” between Whitman and rest of campus, he said.