Golkin Hall, the latest addition to the University of Pennsylvania's law school, announces itself with a contradiction. On a narrow Philadelphia street, opposite a row of historic townhouses and sidewalk cafés, a two-story marble curtain marks the entrance to the new building. The material looks heavy, but as it nears the ground, the individual fixed-in-place plates that make up the form begin to twist away from one another, allowing light to pass through and creating a feeling of weightlessness.
Part sunshade and part sculpture, this 'threshold object,' as Sheila Kennedy of Boston-based Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA) calls it, not only introduces the new hall but was also designed to signify the school's approach to legal education. While KVA employed traditional 'law school' materials — marble, wood, masonry — they appear in ways that confound their typical severity and heft with a sense of lightness and transparency. In contrast to its neighbor, Silverman Hall, an august neo-Georgian building by Cope and Stewardson completed in 1900 and ornamented with a similar palette, Golkin Hall appears permeable and approachable. Silverman is 'this big forbidding thing, and that's what law was,' says Penn Law's dean of students, Gary Clinton. 'Legal education used to be what occurred within those walls, but it's now about what's going on in the city and on the rest of campus.'
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.