Oslo, Norway
Snøhetta has unveiled plans for the renovation and expansion of the new Hopkins Center for the Arts at the Ivy League University Dartmouth creating new spaces to gather while merging indoor spaces and a new outdoor plaza landscape.
Snøhetta’s new designs scheme will approximately add 15,000 square feet (1,394 square meters) of new space and transform 55,000 square feet (5,110 square meters) of existing space.
The modernized Hopkins Center for the Arts, situated in Dartmouth’s Arts District, will be an essential component of Dartmouth’s Arts District, which includes the Hood Museum of Art, redesigned by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects in 2019, and the Black Family Visual Arts Center, completed in 2012 by the design firm Machado Silvetti.
Snøhetta’s design scheme will include key components in the master plan, incorporating a design of an outdoor plaza, forum, recital hall, dance studio, performance lab, and the renovation of the existing Spaulding Auditorium, and a new, flexible Theater Rehearsal Lab.
While the new design reimagines the function and flow of the iconic building by creating open and flexible performance and rehearsal spaces that will meet the current and future needs of students, faculty, and artists, the new plans aim to enhance audience engagement by substantially improving accessibility and technological capabilities.
The original architecture of the Hopkins Center for the Arts was designed in 1962 by Wallace K. Harrison, the architect of New York City’s Lincoln Center.
Snøhetta’s plans will honor the original architecture of the building by maintaining the building’s overarching frame, such as distinctive arches, and other important spaces including the Top of the Hop. Besides, the lobby outside of Moore Theater and Spaulding Auditorium will be redesigned.
“The Hop has long been a center for creative expression on the Dartmouth campus,” states Craig Dykers, a founding partner, of Snøhetta.
“We’re honored to celebrate the arts through the redesign and expansion project, bringing music, theater, dance, and film together. As the prototype for an entire generation of academic and civic art centers, the Hop will be reimagined once more as the college’s cultural hub, a place of experimentation, art, and community,” Dykers adds.
“When it opened 60 years ago, the Hop was among the first university art centers in the country to bring music, theater, dance, and film programs together under a single roof,” stated a press release by Dartmouth University.
Snøhetta was selected by Dartmouth because of the firm’s experience in honoring historic architecture and seamlessly merging it with forward-looking design.
The project will address the growing demand for arts on campus, from course offerings that have wait-lists each term of upwards of 200 students to the more than 30 student-led ensembles that have no dedicated practice or performance space.
The project will also establish a more connected space for professional artists, allowing for the expansion of the length and number of residencies for artists at the Hop, and providing resources for arts-related student groups and ensembles, which continue to flourish on campus.
“With new and upgraded spaces to think, create, experience, and connect, the Hop’s role as a cultural arts hub will invariably draw even more students, teachers, creatives, and audiences to Dartmouth and our community,” says Mary Lou Aleskie, the Howard L. Gilman ’44 Director of the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
“It will engage students—future engineers and scientists as well as budding actors and sculptors—and offer thought-provoking, challenging concepts to broaden the kind of thinking that a liberal arts education has to offer,” Aleskie adds.
Project: Renovation and Expansion of New Hopkins Center for the Arts
Architects: Snøhetta
Client: Dartmouth College
Photographers: Snøhetta, Methanoia
