FAVORS ORDERLY SCHEME FOR NEW DORMITORIES

In explaining the difficulties that face the committee in charge of the plans for the future development of the University, Mr. C. A. Coolidge '81 of the Board of Overseers, speaking at Robinson Hall Monday evening, placed special emphasis on the problems involved in arranging groups of buildings for the University, which has to a large extent grown up without any definite arrangement of its structures and which possesses traditions that forbid the destruction, unless absolutely necessary, of any existing monument to the past.

He declared that the system evolved by the committee provides for a more orderly grouping of the halls and other edifices in the Yard, which may possibly be enclosed by subordinate dormitories and a re-orientation of Appleton Chapel. One of the greatest problems, Mr. Coolidge said, was the necessity of enlarging the Fogg Art Museum without extending it too near the chapel. He spoke of the future establishment of a large zone for college dormitories between the Yard and the river, but especially along the banks of the latter as an expansion of the Freshman Dormitories. In conclusion, he pointed out the need of additional housing facilities for the engineering students, the college graduates in the Law School, and other members of the University.

The speaker brought out clearly the difficulties entailed by the adoption of any set plan, and the need of modifying it as the University developed. He proved, however, that some sort of an orderly scheme was imperative, and that, although it might take generations to complete the work begun, the end in view was worth the most careful study and consideration.

Mr. Coolidge has probably had wider experience than any other architect in the country in the arrangement of institutional buildings, since he has designed the arrangement of structures at Leland Stanford University, the Chicago Art Institute, the Medical School group in Pekin, China, the buildings of the Rockefeller Institute in New York, in addition to the Harvard Medical School and the Freshman Dormitories.