A place where living and learning environments converge
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The design and detailing of the Athenaeum is inspired by the modernist, crafted aesthetic for which the Goucher campus is increasingly well-known. It is clad in glass, Butler stone, redwood, and copper—the predominant materials found in Goucher's buildings. The interior is constructed from terrazzo, white oak, redwood, carpet, and glass. |
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The original designers, who developed the master plan for the Towson location to which Goucher moved from downtown Baltimore in 1954, envisioned a campus that would bring "program and site into harmony," centered on a student union situated between the academic and residential quads, with plenty of open, green space around it. As the campus evolved, however, what ended up in that area was a parking lot and a road that divided the land in a way that seemed to set a good deal of it apart from the rest of the grounds.
In preparing for the Athenaeum, we moved the Loop Road back out to the perimeter of the campus, reconnecting the green space that had been lost. We moved the parking lots to keep cars mostly outside the central campus. In 2005, we completed and opened a new residence hall—Welsh Hall—to accommodate Goucher’s growing student body. The Athenaeum sits comfortably between Welsh Hall and the Alumnae/i House.
In both a physical and a metaphoric sense, the Athenaeum is the place where the living and learning environments on campus converge. Its design respects the original plan’s comfortable arrangement and spacing of structures, and it creates a generous campus green between the Athenaeum and Welsh Hall. The structure itself responds to the established heights of the neighboring buildings, and it leaves plenty of open views of the woods surrounding the campus.
In building the Athenaeum, we have realized the vision of the original architects in ways they could not possibly have imagined in their day.
