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Concert Hall in Limoges
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Jackson Hole Center for the Arts Performing Arts Pavilion
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The Manon Caine Russell and Kathryn Caine Wanlass Performance Hall
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater
Sidney Harman Hall - Harman Center for the Arts
Studzinski Recital Hall and Kanbar Auditorium
Tempe Center for the Arts
'62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Young Centre for the Performing Arts '62 Center for Theatre and Dance
William Rawn Associates carefully fit three theaters and a rehearsal space into the bucolic landscape of Williams College.
In spite of the current obsession among intellectually leading colleges and universities with pouring money into sports facilities, some institutions, such as Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, are admirably bolstering their arts profiles. So, while New York City’s Columbia University boasts of a new $100 million campaign for athletic programs and facilities, Williams is competing for top students by building a $50 million performing arts center for theater and dance. The center’s lead donor, the New York investment banker Herbert A. Allen, Jr., wanted to make sure that his alma mater could effectively lure students of theater and dance away from urban educational institutions.
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The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance named, at Allen’s request, for his graduating class, was designed by William Rawn, FAIA, whose Boston-based firm conceived the much-acclaimed Seiji Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood, Massachusetts (1994).
To consolidate its reputation as a performing arts center and accommodate the famed Williamstown Theatre Festival held in the summer, the college needed a complex of three theaters: MainStage, a proscenium-arched main theater that could seat 550; CenterStage, a black-box space that could hold about 150; plus the renovated Adams Memorial, a combination thrust/proscenium stage with 200 or so seats. In addition, it desired a large dance-rehearsal space and the requisite number of dressing rooms, teaching studios, plus a costume workshop, and faculty offices.
Since the center abuts the old 1941 Adams Memorial Theatre (designed by Cram and Ferguson), the 220-seat theater didn’t need to be built anew but was simply renovated for smaller performances. In designing the entire complex, Rawn wanted to keep the 126,000-square-foot facility from being too imposing in scale along Main Street. Here, older traditional buildings, including the faculty club and president’s house, adhered to the low-rise scale and New England character of the bucolic campus. So he let the main entrance jut forward over the south-facing front lawn in a wood-louvered glass pavilion. Since the MainStage Theatre is used in the summer by the Williamstown Festival, the glazed pavilion, shielded from the sun with ash-wood louvers, functions as the lobby for the theater. When the festival is in full swing, the aluminum-and-glass walls slide open, and the pavilion quickly converts to a front porch for theatergoers picnicking on the front lawn.
Formal name of project:
’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Location:
Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Gross square footage:
126,000 sq.ft.
Total construction cost: $39.9 million
Owner:
Williams College
Architect:
William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.,
10 Post Office Square, Suite 1010
Boston, MA 02109
Tel. 617.423.3470
Fax. 617.451.9205
Web: www.rawnarch.com
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