From the Princeton Weekly Bulletin, March 24, 1997
Musicians come home
New Woolworth Center will provide 75 percent
more space for Music DepartmentBy Caroline Moseley
Music is Princeton's most peripatetic department -- a distinction it will joyfully relinquish when it moves back into the greatly expanded Woolworth Center of Musical Studies currently under construction.
"Since Woolworth was constructed in 1963," says department chair Paul Lansky, professor of music, "the Music Department has existed in several places on campus. The music library, musicology seminars and some faculty offices were in Firestone Library; the sound library, practice rooms, and other faculty and administrative offices were in Woolworth."
Since 1995, when the Woolworth contingent moved out to allow construction to proceed, the department's faculty and students have been even more scattered. While the musicology faculty and the library remained in Firestone, the administrative offices, the faculty composers' offices and some classrooms have been at 126 Alexander St.; most classes have been held in Palmer Hall; and practice rooms have been in trailers--first by Palmer Stadium, more recently near Palmer Hall.
"Imagine an art museum that contained only books about art, with all the paintings and sculpture in some other building or buildings," says Lansky. "That's the way the Music Department has been."
No longer. When the department moves into its new quarters at the end of the coming summer, "We will have everything--faculty, administration, classrooms, practice rooms, carrels, listening room, reading room, video viewing area, graduate seminar room and library under one roof," Lansky observes with satisfaction.
Paula Morgan, music librarian since 1964, is enthusiastic about the upcoming move. "We'll have books and sound recordings together," she says. "We'll have a reading room and listening area--both overlooking Prospect Gardens. We'll have two floors of compact shelving and one floor of graduate student carrels. We'll also have many more computer stations." (Currently, she points out, "anyone who wants to use a CD-ROM has to use my PC.")
And, says Morgan, whose office is now "deep underground" on C floor of Firestone, "It will be really nice to have an office with a view for a change."
Vast amounts of light
According to Lansky, the new Woolworth Center is characterized by "Vast amounts of natural light. You walk into an atrium illuminated by huge skylights. You can see the three floors of the library enclosed in glass, the classroom wing on the other side and administrative offices above."
The new Woolworth is about 75 percent larger than the old Woolworth, says Assistant Director of Physical Planning Michael Denchak. It was designed by Juan Navarro Baldeweg of Madrid, with drawings and specifications implemented by Wank Adams Slavin of New York City. Michael Keller, director of Stanford University Libraries, was library consultant, and Acentech of Cambridge, Mass., were acoustic consultants--allowing Woolworth to have a large rehearsal room directly underneath the library.
One of the department's goals, says Lansky, has been to provide in the new building "spaces for social interaction and discussion, which are important to the creation and study of music."
All in all, says the department chair, "This will be the most sensational building on campus."