Williams College to Hold Public Open House
WILLIAMSTOWN - Williams invites all members of the public to visit its two recently opened academic buildings during an open house Sat., Sept. 13, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. There will be no formal tours; visitors will be free to walk through the buildings on their own.The buildings are just to the north and south of Sawyer Library, on Main Street between Hopkins Hall and the Congregational Church. Parking will be behind the college chapel.
The buildings, designed by the firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, were built over the last year and a half at a cost of $38 million to provide for the humanities and social sciences the kinds of teaching and learning spaces, both formal and informal, that have proven so effective in the college's Science Center.
The two new academic buildings together house 165 offices, 10 classrooms, 4 meeting rooms, and 12 gathering areas.
Their construction is the first phase of a larger project that includes creation of a new central library. Beginning this fall, the college will remove two, mostly dysfunctional additions to Stetson Hall and replace them with new construction, which, along with a renovation of the original Stetson Hall, will become the new Sawyer Library and Center for Media Initiatives. When materials are moved from the present library to the new one, the current library building will be taken down, creating new green space in the middle of campus. Completion is scheduled for 2011.
