Melissa DelVecchio '98 M.Arch, Partner, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP
Yale's system of residential colleges, established in the late 1930s and today the cornerstone of its undergraduate experience, was given physical form by architect James Gamble Rogers (B.A 1889), who designed eight of the first ten to be built. Four are red-brick Georgian; the other six, as well as very many other Yale buildings of the period including the Sterling Memorial Library and the Law School, are Gothic buildings of stone and brick, as such contributing to the dominant visual language of the University. Two additional colleges, Stiles and Morse, built in the 1960s to the design of Eero Saarinen (B.Arch. '34), acknowledge Rogers's Gothic but in a Modernist style. Robert A.M. Stern Architects’ Partner Melissa DelVecchio (M.Arch. '98) will discuss how the firm approached the design of Franklin and Murray Colleges, the first two new residential colleges to be built in over fifty years. Designed as fraternal twins, similar in size and palette but each enjoying its own identity and organization, the new colleges will carry forward the legacy of Gothic Yale. Since 2008 the firm has been working with the University to realize this important project. As we approach the opening this coming fall, Melissa will present the design process and also give a virtual tour of the construction site as the building nears completion.