December 8, 2017

Over the span of the past 90 years there have been multiple designs for the campus and its buildings. This class taught by Donald Sherefkin will focus on the history of the library, from its first Ames and Dodge designs for the Monument Campus of 1927, to the 2006 proposed expansion by Allied Works Architects. Between these two designs, there were at least six other design proposals, including the Edward Clark Crossett Library.

For each class, there will be readings and a slide presentation exploring these designs, including their formal and theoretical precedents. Each week an assignment will be given focusing on a particular aspect of a design proposal. We will explore siting, geometry, light, structure, materials, and movement. 

Scaled architectural plans and Rhino 3-D software files will be made available to all.

There will be weekly readings and slide presentations to review and course participants are encouraged to make drawings, analytical diagrams, models, or written responses to weekly prompts. For a final assignment, we will invite participants to propose their vision for a new addition to the Crossett Library, guided by a brief prepared by our Dean of the Library, Oceana Wilson.

Bennington: Real and Imagined - The Libraries will run for seven weeks beginning the week of February 26, 2018 and ending the week of April 13, 2018. In the spring, course participants are invited to campus to share their work and to meet with students who were enrolled in the same class in the fall.

Materials: Access to the internet.

Cost: $100. Travel and accommodations for the on-campus gathering are not included.

A faculty member at Bennington College since 1996, Donald Sherefkin practices architecture in New York and Vermont, and also pursues various graphic and product design ventures. He has taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where he also headed the University’s in-house architecture office at Mies van der Rohe’s historic campus. He has participated in architectural juries at Harvard, MIT, McGill, and Pennsylvania State University, BArch, The Cooper Union; graduate work with Daniel Libeskind, Cranbrook Academy.