The project donors to date include the Ahmanson Foundation, Caltech alumnus Martin D. Gray, BS '71 engineering and applied science, Caltech staff member Evelyn J. Cederbaum, and Dabney family members Tom and Diane Kettering.
The project includes renovation of Millikan Library where staff and administrators will move to from Dabney; the total cost is $12 million.
Dabney Hall, like the science buildings around it, was designed by the architect Bertram Goodhue and embodies forms found in pueblo architecture with abstract decoration inspired by Mayan designs. The east wing, often used as performance space, is flanked by a garden and completes Dabney Hall's "L" shape.
The original gift to build the hall was given by Joseph B. and Louise E. Dabney who donated $250,000 in 1927. Finished in 1929, Dabney Hall is the original home of Caltech's humanities department. For 40 years the building functioned as a home for the humanities and its distinguished teachers such as Hallett Smith, a Shakespeare scholar and an editor of the Norton Anthology, and John Benton, a McArthur Fellow and medieval historian, both now deceased. It was a place to gather, relax, play music, and read books – a student center.
As the institute's needs developed, however, the building began to be used for a variety of campus research and administrative purposes. Offices replaced the original library reading room, Treasure Room, and lecture rooms, and the humanities library collection was relocated. The humanities department's steady expansion resulted in most faculty moving their offices into the newer Donald E. Baxter, M.D., Hall of the Humanities and Social Sciences, built in the 1970s.
The renovation project will not only restore Dabney Hall to its early grandeur, but will also reaffirm its position as home to Caltech's humanities. It will begin in September and conclude in June 2004. The humanities faculty will be housed there together, and both the humanities library and Treasure Room will return. As in the past, the Treasure Room will be used as a multi-purpose space. Restoration plans also include an expanded Alexander P. and Adelaide F. Hixon Writing Center, and classrooms. The renovations will "not only help reclaim the beauty of an extraordinary building [but also] invigorate the humanities for students through space enlivened by study, research, lectures, and performance" said Caltech's president David Baltimore.
The Dabney Lounge will be restored and improved. Original lighting fixtures will be rewired and new, enhanced lighting will be installed; the original wood floors and wainscoting will be refinished, the fireplace will be repaired, new restrooms will be installed; and new furnishings will make the room an inviting place for small meetings or relaxation.
A new stairwell from the basement into the adjacent Dabney gardens will be installed, and a drainage problem in the gardens will be corrected. The renovations will centralize the humanities department, and may propel Caltech's research in the humanities to new heights. Since 1929, the division has expanded its research to include history of science; U.S. cultural history; U.S., European and Chinese demographic history; 18th, 19th, and 20th century literature; philosophy of science; and philosophy of cognitive science, and neuroscience.
Humanities research and projects at Caltech include interdisciplinary work within the Institute as well as partnerships with organizations outside the Institute such as the Huntington Library where students and faculty engage in collaborative research, teaching, and scholarly programs.
Among the faculty who will reside in the newly renovated building are two who were hired this year John Brewer, a British historian, and Mordechai Feingold, a professor of 17th and 18th century science.
A longtime friend of Caltech, the Ahmanson Foundation has supported the Institute's capital projects, student financial aid, and endowment for academic research and a humanities fellowship. The foundation concentrates its funding on cultural projects supporting the arts, education at the collegiate and precollegiate levels, medicine and delivery of health care services, specialized library collections, and programs related to homelessness. Most of the foundation's philanthropy is directed toward organizations in the Los Angeles area.
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Written by Jill Perry