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NEW
MASTER PLAN UNVEILED FOR BARNARD COLLEGE CAMPUS
Focus is New Six-Story Building to House Library, Dining
Hall and Large Event Space, Replacing McIntosh Student Center
Bird's-eye
view of campus. To see larger diagrams and to read more
about the master plan, click
here. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.) |
New
York, N.Y. – The Barnard Trustees have endorsed a campus
master plan that provides 100,000 square feet of new or
renovated space for classrooms, a library, and academic
and social programming while maintaining the campus greenspace
as an urban oasis. At its centerpiece, the plan envisions
the construction of a new six-story multi-purpose building
with a library, central dining hall and 900-seat event space
to replace the Millicent McIntosh Student Center, built
more than 40 years ago.
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President
Shaprio sent a V-Mail (video e-mail) to
alumnae on January 14, 2003, discussing
the master plan and setting it in the
context of Barnard's culture and our values
as a community. To read a transcript or
view the video please click
here.
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The
plan, the first for Barnard since its move to northern Manhattan
nearly 100 years ago, was presented to the Trustees on Wednesday,
Dec. 4 by the planning and architectural firm Hardy Holzman
Pfeiffer Associates. [To
see larger diagrams and to read more about the master plan,
click here. (Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader.]
To knit
together a range of academic, cultural and social activities
and expand community use space, the master plan calls for
the creation of a complex or "Nexus" that joins
two existing buildings, Lehman and Altschul halls, to the
new multi-purpose center, to be built on the footprint of
the McIntosh Center.
The first floor of each building, according to the proposal,
would be linked through a three-story glass-enclosed atrium
on the current site of an outdoor plaza area. This complex,
viewed as the new heart of the campus, would provide flexible
and large public areas in addition to classroom and other
rooms for academic and research use and would include small
food cafes, lounges and meeting rooms.
The master plan is intended to transform the 4 1/2 acre Barnard
campus in phases over the next 10 years. The new multi-purpose
building, the top priority, is estimated to cost $41 million,
which the College plans to raise through a combination of
borrowing and gifts from donors. Another projected $12 million
would be required to complete the additional renovations and
landscaping under the plan.
In addition to the new library/classroom/social center on
the McIntosh site, the plan outlines the expansion and renovation
of Lehman Hall, replacing Lehman’s façade and
enclosing what is now a dark outside walkway that runs the
length of its first floor, and moving the current Wollman
Library from Lehman to the new multi-use building, creating
space for an expanded collection, more on-line research and
study areas.
The plan overall will give Barnard more room for computer
networking, studio and gallery space for its signature architecture
and visual arts programs, meeting space, lounges, cafes, a
large and light-filled dining area and its first large venue
dedicated to public events, lectures and performances. Because
it lacks a major public venue, Barnard is pressed to overflowing
in accommodating the public for its distinguished women’s
center lectures, forums and performing arts programs.
"New York City is the ideal place for a liberal arts
education with its world-class cultural and educational institutions
and programs," said Barnard President Judith Shapiro,
"but we do struggle in cramped quarters because of our
urban location. This master plan gives us the best of all
worlds – an expanded universe for teaching and studying,
new quarters for cultural and other programs as well as for
socializing. It also preserves our beautiful and vital green
space. Years from now the Barnard campus will have a new look,
a new feel and ample room for the kind of dynamic and creative
activities for which Barnard has always been known."
Gayle Robinson, board chair and a Barnard alumna, Class of
1975, said: "The master plan is exactly what we want.
It allows our small campus to remain beautiful with its free
space and ample greenery while at the same time, it will allow
us to build a stronger campus community and accommodate expanded
programs in the arts and sciences." Recalling her years
as a student, Robinson added: "I always felt that the
campus was a very comfortable, safe and warm place. Once I
came through the gates, it was hard to believe I was in the
middle of New York City. The master plan holds true to that
aspect of Barnard."
The 113-year-old independent undergraduate liberal arts college
for women, which is affiliated with Columbia University, has,
like other urban campuses with diverse student populations,
experienced increased demand for new academic, cultural and
social programming.
Faced with its limited site on a four block area of Morningside
Heights – between Broadway and Claremont avenue from
West 116th to 120th streets -- the College hired Hardy Holzman
a year ago to address its space deficit under the guidance
of a steering committee of students, faculty and administrators.
The challenge was to preserve the open space that makes Barnard
attractive as an urban oasis, creating more room while keeping
the campus from seeming to be overly congested.
The resulting master plan adopted by the Trustees capped a
year of campus-wide discussion and evaluation and neighborhood
input through meetings with elected officials and community
boards.
The next step will be the hiring of an architect to design
the new building to replace McIntosh. August 2004 is the proposed
date for completing the final design with construction slated
for completion in the fall of 2006. Once the new building
is completed, work on the major renovations to Lehman will
proceed.
The proposed multi-use building, to be located along Broadway
between West 117th and 119th streets, is envisioned as a light-filled
structure with generous views from windows facing all directions.
While the two-level McIntosh has its back to Broadway, the
building that will replace it will face the thoroughfare,
thus creating a more lively second campus entrance, in addition
to landscaping along a longer swath of Barnard’s Broadway
site. North of its elegant gated main entrance at West 117th
street, the second entrance would raise Barnard’s profile
along Broadway, to the west of the Columbia campus. Plans
also call for enhancing Barnard’s landscaping and lighting
and adding street benches and plantings along West 120th Street
and Claremont Avenue.
While the two-story McIntosh has dark, below-grade level dining
hall and student activities facility, the new building would
house an airy plaza-level dining room to accommodate 300 people
and on its upper-most floor, a flexible multi-purpose space
that could seat as many as 900 with a mezzanine and a terrace
roof garden facing Lehman Lawn, Barnard’s main outdoor
space. Three floors would be devoted to the library and one
to academic departments. The College plans a tribute to Millicent
McIntosh, the late longtime Dean of the College, in another
campus location as the McIntosh Center is replaced.
Plans for Lehman Hall would add 6,000 square feet and devote
the first floor to student activities offices as well as a
lounge, café, art gallery, computer labs and meeting
space. The second and third floors, presently part of the
Wollman Library, would be devoted to the arts. Vacant space
created by the exodus of arts programs would allow for the
expansion of the Dance Department in Barnard Hall, which also
would be renovated at a later date under the plan. The master
plan also envisions the expansion and renovation of the Theater
Department in Milbank Hall, another of Barnard’s signature
programs. Barnard and Milbank halls date from Barnard’s
early years on Morningside Heights at the turn of the 20th
century.
As a highly selective college devoted to mentoring its students,
Barnard has no plans to increase its student population beyond
the current 2,200 students, or to expand academic facilities
beyond its current location.
The College is in a strong financial position to implement
the master plan, despite difficult economic times. A conservative
path during the boom years of the 1990’s has afforded
Barnard operating budget surpluses and little outstanding
debt.
"Today’s extremely low interest rates present us
with an excellent opportunity," said Andrew Manshel,
vice president for finance and administration. "It’s
the best possible time to borrow money for major construction."
Barnard is currently in the midst of a major renovation of
all of its dormitories, following the development of a separate
residential master plan by The Hillier Group. Financed by
the operating budget surpluses and incoming gifts from donors,
Barnard has already begun renovating apartment buildings it
owns on West 116th Street to provide common areas for socializing
where before students lived in converted apartments with corridor-style
layouts.
Community space is a priority in the dormitory renovations
and by the time all of the work is finished over the next
decade – with work taking place during summers when students
are away -- Barnard’s residence halls will have spacious
first-floor lounges in addition to fitness and exercise rooms
and space for group study, computer work and music practice.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, Office of Public Affairs, (212) 854-7583,
strimel@barnard.edu. |
