A 40 Wellesley Summer 2010
The North Portico, now enclosed with glass doors that provide a weather break, as seen from the exterior (above) and interior (below).
JOHN MOTTEN
lumnae Hall is back. It was formally dedicated on April 23, after an $18 million makeover that was its first complete renovation since the building opened in December 1923. Renamed Diana Chapman Walsh Alumnae Hall, it’s arguably now just what it was meant to be all along, only more so. “Back to the future,” is Wellesley’s 12th president’s comment on the structure that now bears her name. It is a renovation that has been thorough without interfering with the building’s much-admired “good bones.” Now more than ever, Alumnae Hall fulfills its roles both as a gathering place for alumnae and visitors and as a functional home for student activities. In her remarks at the dedication, Walsh called the renovation “the final punctuation mark” for the restoration of the western campus. Once blighted with asphalt and contaminated soils, the western campus today surrounds the main motor entrance to the College. And Alumnae Hall is one of the first buildings a visitor sees.