View of proposed interim illumination of stage wall at the Pilgrim Theater site by Sheila Kennedy

As the Mount Holyoke community enjoys the newly renovated Pratt Hall, tracks the construction progress at the new science center and art building, awaits revitalization of the Blanchard Campus Center, and focuses on finalizing a campus master plan, the Weissman Center for Leadership takes up the meaning of architecture and public space in a yearlong series. Fall events will focus on shaping the public realm, while spring will revolve around the architect as visionary. Building Meaning: Architecture and Public Space in the Third Millennium will include conversations with leading architects, critics, urban planners, and specialists in adaptive reuse and historical preservation and will begin with "Women and Public Space," a panel discussion set for Thursday, October 4, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium. The event is being sponsored by the class of 1958.

Through this year's series on architecture and public space, Weissman Center codirectors Christopher Benfey and Karen Remmler hope to generate critical thought and dialogue about the campus construction projects and architecture in public life. Discussions will encompass fundamental questions of power and the often conflicting demands placed on decision makers and marginalized populations, historic preservation and infrastructure requirements, environmental preservation, and fiscal responsibility.

"We wanted people to be thinking about the building going on, not just suffering from the inconveniences of construction," joked Benfey. At least twenty other faculty members indicated a similar desire by taking part in Planning Environments: Architecture and Theory in Process, a Five College faculty seminar that inspired many to incorporate themes of architecture and public space into their courses. In addition to helping students make sense of the transformation of the MHC landscape, these courses and the Weissman Center series will create opportunities for exchange and public debate on the public role of architects, planners, designers, and critics in shaping social interaction and the use of space.

The first event of the Building Meaning series will bring together an architect, a real estate developer, a real estate consultant, and a planning critic who are sure to ignite that hoped-for exchange and debate. All women, the panelists will address the meaning and function of public spaces, as well as the particular challenges and dilemmas facing the women who create those public spaces.

Mount Holyoke trustee Alma Tina Hogan '74, herself a corporate real estate adviser as well as an attorney, will moderate the October 4 panel, which will feature architect Sheila Kennedy, real estate developer Paula Robinson Collins '71, and urban planning expert Ann Forsyth.

Former director of the Advanced Studies Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, Kennedy is principal architect and cofounder of Kennedy and Violich Architecture, which has been awarded the commission for the new School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kennedy will discuss her firm's specialty: how new architecture can be integrated with existing and emerging forms of infrastructure. "She will bring this view of younger women architects who are bringing something new to this field that has long been a male bastion,” Benfey said.

Collins, who earned a degree in urban studies at MHC, is founder of the San Francisco real estate development and investment firm WDG Ventures, Inc. Known for large-scale development work in the Bay Area, she was a member of the project development team for the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco and was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. in 2000. She will speak about the challenges facing developers engaged in large-scale commercial, industrial, and residential development.

Once an award-winning planner, Forsyth is now associate professor of urban planning at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. She is author of Constructing Suburbs and currently is writing a book that will evaluate three United States towns developed in the 1960s as an alternative to urban sprawl. She will discuss the social aspects and impact of physical planning and urban development.

The series will continue with "The Many Lives of Factory Buildings" Thursday, October 25, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium. This discussion of reused factory buildings will give special attention to MASSMoCA of North Adams. That celebrated factory-turned-art museum was designed by panelist Simeon Bruner, founding principal of Bruner/Cott & Associates and president of Cambridge Development Corporation. Joining Bruner will be John Mullin, professor of urban planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Anthony Lee, associate professor of art at Mount Holyoke. Karen Koehler, Five College visiting scholar and professor of art history, will moderate.

Conflicts and compromises of public space from a historical perspective will be the subjects of "Contested Ground: Meaningful Landscapes and Cultural Conflict in the Past" Wednesday, November 14, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium. Guest speakers will be Alistair Pearson, principal lecturer in geography from the University of Portsmouth in England; Brian Osborne, professor of geography at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario; and Anne Kelly Knowles, author and scholar from Washington, D.C.

Known worldwide for his sustainable designs and commitment to ecologically intelligent architecture, designer William McDonough will lead the discussion Wednesday, December 5. "Ecological Architecture, Design, and Ethics: A Conversation with William McDonough" will be held in Gamble Auditorium at 7:30 pm and is cosponsored by MHC's Center for Environmental Literacy.

Building Meaning will continue in the spring term, shifting its focus from public space itself to the individual architects who shape it. "We look to architects and ask, 'What is life going to be like in the future?'" said Benfey, describing the role of the architect as visionary. "There has been a recent surge of interest in architecture, especially in the design of museums and other public buildings, and a handful of architects have changed the way we view space." Invited guests include such renowned architects as Daniel Libeskind, designer of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and Elizabeth Diller, designer of the "Blur Building" in Switzerland.