East Pyne Hall and Chancellor Green will be renovated and restored.
By: Jeff Milgram
A complicated construction project scheduled to begin this summer will renovate two 100-year-old Princeton University buildings and create a new environment for the humanities departments.
East Pyne Hall will be renovated and expanded to become the new home of the Andlinger Center for the Humanities. Nearby Chancellor Green will be restored.
The project is complicated because East Pyne Hall will be expanded underground, said Michael Denchak, assistant director of physical planning and project manager for the humanities center.
"As you might guess, this is very difficult to do," he said.
The project has been planned for two years, he said.
The center is named for Gerhard Andlinger, a member of the class of 1952 who donated $25 million to Princeton last year as part of the university’s $1.14 billion five-year Anniversary Campaign.
"The center will give a more visible profile to the humanities as a unit in the university by bringing together a number of departments," said Professor Alexander Nehamas, chairman of the Humanities Council.
The center will encompass the classics department and the language departments as well as the Humanities Council, the more than 20 interdisciplinary programs it administers and its Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts.
The departments will remain separate entities. But the unifying center along with the physical renovation that is expected to open up the building and tie it to others nearby should have a big effect on interdepartmental cooperation, Professor Nehamas said.
"It will work both horizontally, integrating our departments and programs, and vertically, connecting faculty and students," he said.
The academic departments are being moved out now, Mr. Denchak said. The departments will be housed in temporary quarters until the project is completed in the summer of 2003.
Site preparation and relocation of utilities are scheduled to begin this month, with construction slated to start in mid-July, according to Mr. Denchak.
The East Pyne/Chancellor Green work is the second part of a three-phase project that began last summer with the renovation of the Joseph Henry House, which serves as headquarters for the Humanities Council and the Society of Fellows.
The third part will be construction of a 10,000-square-foot building on the plot of land directly north of Chancellor Green and between the Joseph Henry House and Firestone Library. Work on that building, which also will house humanities programs, will begin in the spring of 2002 and conclude in the summer of 2003.
The East Pyne/Chancellor Green project encompasses about 85,000 square feet. Chancellor Green was built in 1873 and East Pyne in 1897. Both originally housed the university library.
"When we began planning for accommodating the departments and programs, it was clear to us right from the start that there was more space needed than we had available in the existing structures," Mr. Denchak said.
The solution: expand underground. Crews will take out the existing paving stones, excavate under the existing East Pyne courtyard, making room for a 70-seat auditorium and a language-resource center on the lower level.
Mr. Denchak said asbestos will have to be removed from heating pipes.
"Right now, humanities departments and programs as a whole have no auditorium of their own. We have to use various sites around the campus," Professor Nehamas said. "The new auditorium, which will include film-projection facilities, will be used for many events of interest to the humanities in general."
Once excavation is complete, the courtyard will be reconstructed. Another key feature of the renovation will be the configuration of a new main entrance and lobby off the courtyard at the north wing of East Pyne, where the old cafeteria was located.
The architects for the project are Schwartz/Silver Architects of Boston.
On the Chancellor Green side, the café and mezzanine will be converted into a general-periodicals room that will be relocated from Firestone Library. The lower level, formerly a game room, will be transformed into a new café. The café will be accessible from a new entrance constructed on the north side of the building.
Professor Nehamas said the renovation will remedy some of the design problems with East Pyne. The current layout tends to promote isolation rather than congregation in the building, he said.
"The library and café will make a major difference," Professor Nehamas said. "They will be places where people can meet casually. Right now, that is impossible in East Pyne. The new circulation pattern is going to be much more complex and, ideally, more interesting. The main entrance, which is so centrally located, will also make a big difference."