Plans are in the works for expansions to the Hopkins Center for the Arts that will include a new building for the studio art and film and television studies departments.
"The film and studio art programs are in desperate need of more space," said associate director of facilities planning Jack Wilson.
Currently, "studio artists are really jammed between Wilson and Clement Hall," Wilson said.
Studio art intern Meredith Esser '03 agreed with Wilson. She said when she was an undergraduate there was always a need for more studio space.
"I think it's a good thing for the art and film departments," Esser said.
The architects for the new building will be the Boston-based firm Machado and Silvetti and Associates. The design for the building has not been completed and a preliminary analysis of the program's needs is still being worked on, according to Wilson.
Wilson also pointed to the need for more rehearsal space for the drama department. He said it would be nice to have a rehearsal space the same size as Spaulding Auditorium's stage so rehearsals would not have to tie up the auditorium.
The film studies department, too, has long been in need of more space -- since the very opening of the Hopkins Center in 1962. The Hop's initial construction was slated for $7.5 million, but costs were cut throughout the building process, with film and television studies spaces the most cut.
Wilson also mentioned the need for more performance space.
The Hopkins Center was originally designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison, who went on to help design the Rockefeller Center in New York, the Lincoln Center and the headquarters of the United Nations. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated more than $1 million to the project. It was rumored that his son Nelson Rockefeller '30, who was on the planning board for the Hop, hand-picked Harrison, who was his favorite architect.
Before its opening, the Hopkins Center raised a furor of alumni protests against its modernistic design.
One alumnus wrote to The Dartmouth sarcastically suggesting that Dartmouth Row be bulldozed and replaced with modernist buildings. However, most critics were silenced once they actually saw the completed building.
If Machado and Silvetti's previous work is any indication, the Hop's expansion will not disappoint either.
The firm's most famous recent building is the Boston Public Library in Allston, which was called by the Boston Globe the "the best new public building in Boston in years."
Former expansions to the Hopkins Center include the Hood Museum of Art in 1985 and an electronic music studio in 1986.
