It’s a challenge that many universities face: What to do with lovely, old buildings on campus that have become run-down and outdated? Some schools add jarring additions or try to create a faux period piece with a renovation, while others tear them down and erect bold contemporary structures in their place.
At Princeton University, a campus with a tapestry of collegiate Gothic buildings, as well as major midcentury and contemporary icons, KPMB Architects skirted all these choices and came up with a stunning solution. The Toronto-based firm reinvented the 1929 Frick Chemistry Laboratories, designed by Charles Klauder, by perfectly straddling a line between preserving what made the building special and creating a new core that has everything a student or faculty member could want. Landscape designer Michael Van Valkenburgh’s careful deletions and additions around the building are also critical to the magic, as is his restoration of Beatrix Farrand’s original landscaping. According to university architect Ronald McCoy, the former Frick’s transformation into the conjoined Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building and Louis A. Simpson International Building is the most significant renovation of any Princeton historic building.
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