AlA New England 2007 Design Awards

Jury: Allison Ewing, AlA, Hays Ewing Design Studio, Charlotteville, Virginia; David Jameson, FAlA, David Jameson Architect, Alexandria, Virginia; Vernon Mays, Curator of Architecture + Design at the Virginia Center for Architecture

Memorial Chapel, Patricelli ’92 Theater, and Zelnick Pavilion
Wesleyan University
Middletown, Connecticut

Robert Olson + Associates Architects
Boston, Massachusetts

Merit Award
Educational/Institutional

Jury Comments:

“The Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan has a transparent entry space between two gothic structures, a theater and a chapel. It clearly uses the language of antiquity, such as the groin vaults, and has a very simple structural system that allows the building to be held up from its core at the center and for the glazing to wrap around and make it very light. There is a nice juxtaposition of solid and void. In its idea of a pavilion in a landscape, you can read the vaulted, arched elements of structure; it has a nice vocabulary with the adjacent structures of chapel and theater. The jury was more interested in the elegance and intelligence of the planning solution than on the restoration work done in older buildings, in the insertion of the new pavilion in the center to deal with the circulation issues of entrance and getting to the different floor heights of the buildings. It is restrained but elegant, very appropriately scaled, very handsome. The sum is greater than the parts and makes the trio of buildings much stronger.”

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