Princeton, N.J. — It was a balky heating-and-air-conditioning system that started the ball rolling. By the time it stopped, Princeton University and the architecture firm Farewell Mills Gatsch had almost completely renovated and upgraded the interior of Whig Hall, a marble temple from the 1890s that—thanks to the late Charles Gwathmey—ended up as a landmark of Modernist architecture.
Whig Hall (left) is the successor to a series of literary-society spaces that date back to the 1760s, when the university was still called the College of New Jersey and two groups of students formed groups to practice debating and other literary skills. One group was called the American Whig Society, and the other the Cliosophic Society. In 1837, Whig and Clio began building identical Greek Revival halls on what was then the back campus. As the end of the 19th century approached, however, members complained that the aging buildings were cramped and unappealing, and in 1893 the two groups commissioned A. Page Brown to design larger buildings, again in the Ionic style but this time in marble. In the 1920s, Whig and Clio merged and turned Cliosophic Hall over to the university (it’s now the admissions office).
Whig Hall would have probably have remained an attractive but fairly unremarkable temple had it not been gutted by fire in 1969. Mr. Gwathmey, who died in August, was then a young Modernist who, as an architecture student at Yale University in the early 1960s, had been an assistant to the architecture dean, Paul Rudolph. Mr. Gwathmey and his colleagues at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects shoehorned a four-story Modernist building into Whig Hall’s surviving walls, revealing what they had done by peeling away the east side of the building so that its classical base, corners, and cornice became a picture frame for the Modernist structure within. Meanwhile the columned front, the west side, and the back remained as they were. The project gave Whig Hall a mostly white interior that had a two-story meeting room as well as a first-floor classroom, basement lounge, and offices for student organizations. The building immediately earned wide acclaim.
Farewell Mills Gatsch got involved with Whig Hall in the mid-1990s, when the firm oversaw a restoration of the marble exteriors of both Whig and Cliosophic. (The project’s big challenge was replacing the marble bases of the two buildings’ columns without disturbing the 22-foot-tall columns themselves.) When Whig’s heating and air conditioning needed work, Princeton called Farewell Mills Gatsch to have a look. Eventually the project expanded to include a number of safety, access, usability, and energy-efficiency improvements.
Michael J. Mills, a principal at the firm, says the renovation was “a nice opportunity to bring back the qualities of the Gwathmey building—we were trying to be very respectful of the Gwathmey work.” Not that Mr. Gwathmey had left them much choice: The 12-inch-thick poured-in-place concrete floors limited changes, especially since openings for the light fixtures were cast into them on a six-foot grid. Because the building’s ceilings were already low, except in the double-height meeting room, drop ceilings were not an option—the renovation would have to go forward with much of what Mr. Gwathmey had designed. The walls presented another challenge, because the upgraded heating and air-conditioning ducts had to be fitted in without disturbing the simplicity of Mr. Gwathmey’s design. In the end, says Alison Baxter, a senior associate at the firm, all the walls were moved in three inches to accommodate the upgrades.
Some of the project’s changes are easy to spot, like a full-height wall that separates the first-floor classroom from the society’s trophy gallery, where a lower wall had allowed noise from the gallery to intrude on classes. And an angled wooden ceiling in the room where society members meet improves the acoustics and accommodates new lights and a sprinkler system. The ceiling is probably the most drastic alteration, and the one most likely to upset purists: What had been a white volume with a flat ceiling supported on two revealed beams is now a space with a much more contemporary feel. But many of the alterations, such as an access ramp and much-improved offices for student organizations, are unobtrusive and probably overdue. The project also restored a number of Gwathmey touches, like colorful doors that interrupt an otherwise black-white-and-gray composition—and help make the renovated Whig Hall such fun to visit.
Whig Hall will be rededicated on November 14.
Whig (left) and Cliosophic Halls (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)
Charles Gwathmey shoehorned a Modernist building into Whig Hall’s shell after a fire ravaged the structure.
Mr. Gwathmey’s exterior had some Escheresque elements, such as this window looking through the original back wall from his Modernist terrace.
The most obvious change in the new renovation is a wooden ceiling added to the double-height room where the American Whig-Cliosophic Society meets. Mr. Gwathmey illuminated the space with a long, narrow skylight over the platform.
A portrait of Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton from 1902 to 1910, overlooks the chamber.
And a bust of James Madison keeps watch over a conference room on the building’s fourth level.
Follow Buildings & Grounds through your favorite RSS reader: