University Sees Renovation Blitz

Students no longer stroll along the much-traversed sidewalk between Thayer Hall and Memorial Church, now closed off from traffic by tall, mesh-covered chain-link fences. The walkway is just one of the parts in and around Harvard Yard that has fallen victim to summer construction.

The FAS website proclaims this summer “a period of unprecedented facilities growth,” as the College attempts to renovate and restore much of campus before students return in the fall.

“We were hoping to get as much demolition, in the Pudding and so on, done as possible over the summer, because that’s the really noisy stuff,” Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said.

“The timing is carefully coordinated to minimize the disruption of campus activities and to occur when the fewest students, faculty, and staff need to be in the buildings,” said Linda Snyder, an associate executive dean at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for physical resources and planning. “Of course, Harvard never shuts down, so we are careful to protect passersby and summer school students and staff.”

PUDDING ON A SHOW

This past Tuesday, work began in earnest on the gutting of the Holyoke Street building that was formerly home to the Hasty Pudding Institute.

Slated for completion in two years, the Holyoke Street building will be known as the New College Theatre. Harvard plans to preserve the Pudding’s Georgian facade while replacing the rich and historic but dilapidated interior with a newer, more technologically sophisticated theater.

Renovations will replace approximately two-thirds of the building, adding rehearsal space on the third floor and office space on the lowest level.

“We have a strong arts heritage here at Harvard,” Gross said in a statement. “The Hasty Pudding Theatricals is in the forefront of that heritage, having been a fixture here since the late 1700s. We are very happy that we will be able to give them, and several other student performance groups at Harvard, a wonderful new home so that old traditions may continue, and new ones may begin.”

MODERNIZING THE CHURCH

Memorial Church, which is undergoing a $3 million overhaul, is just one of the many sites of construction that has seen ground broken, foundations laid, and stalwart edifices cleaned and restored this summer.

“It’s been in the works for a long time. The interior of the church was in lovely condition, but structurally there were some things that needed fixing,” said Director of Development for Memorial Church James R. Salzmann ’02.

The Harvard chapel’s granite steps are being entirely removed and reinstalled this summer, correcting structural problems that had left the stairs lopsided and cracked. The brick substructure beneath the steps had weakened due to the freeze-and-thaw cycle of cold weather, according to Epps Fellow and Chaplain to Harvard College Mark D.W. Edington.

“We found in removing the treads that some of the brick piers were in such poor condition that the masons were able to take them apart by hand,” Edington wrote in an e-mail.

The renovations also included updating safety systems and bringing fire and sprinkler systems into line with revised code.

The project is funded largely through University funds.

Harvard Real Estate Services Project Manager Philip Kramer listed an original contract price of $2,615,000, with architectural, design, internal Harvard, and inspection fees and contingency costs bringing the total approved cost of Memorial Church renovations to $3,381,210.

“The University is supporting nearly the entire cost of this project as a capital improvement project, something that all University buildings go through on a long-term schedule. Many of the elements of this project were planned years ago as summer projects, only to be deferred for budget or other reasons,” Edington wrote.

He wrote that there was a conscious effort on the part of administrators to fit the entire series of renovations into one summer.

“This past November it became increasingly clear that we had an opportunity to bring many of these elements together into one major, integrated project that would essentially concentrate all of the pain and dislocation into one summer.”

The church will reopen for weddings on September 3, with services starting Sunday, September 11.

PRESERVING A LANDMARK

Sever Hall is enveloped by a cocoon of scaffolding and mesh while it undergoes external restoration and internal conversion.

The building’s fourth floor is being converted to provide space for the Visual and Environmental Studies Department, particularly film studies. The new floor will feature two studio classrooms, three screening rooms, a film library, and offices, moving the film program into the Yard and out of the Carpenter Center.

Externally, Sever, which is a national historic landmark, will undergo restoration, with molding, trim, tiles, and masonry cleaned, repaired, and returned to original colors and styles.

“This year inside Sever Hall a wonderful renovation is taking place to create a new, contemporary, exciting space for the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies,” Snyder wrote.

FAS and Harvard Law School (HLS) are also splitting the costs of a summer-long renovation of the HLS Hemenway Gym.

The gym’s seven American-sized squash courts are being converted to three International courts, the new standard for the game. The renovation will more than double fitness space in the gym.

North of the Yard, work is also proceeding on two science buildings, the Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering and the Northwest Science Building, slated for completion in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.