The Project Takes Shape Students and faculty watch helplessly as Old Main is consumed by fire in 1907.
on the campus to manufacture bricks for the new building. One year later, the structure was completed, $1,000 under budget. For nearly a half century, the three-story, ivy-covered building, which had a north wing added in 1877, was the beloved “Old Main” to generations of Monmouth graduates. Prominent among them was Thomas Hanna McMichael, the son of the second Monmouth president, who himself assumed the presidency in 1903. On the morning of November 14, 1907, McMichael was summoned from his office with reports of smoke filling the biology lab in the northwest corner of the addition. Although the building had recently been outfitted with steam heat, a fire had ignited in a defective chimney, and soon the roof was ablaze. The fire department was called, and students calmly began moving desks, books and scientific equipment out onto the lawn. No one suspected at the time that Old Main would become a total loss. Almost miraculously, a new college building, named after President Wallace, would be erected on the site just 15 months after the blaze.
T
oday, there is no living person who saw Old Main, and most current students are not even aware that a predecessor to Wallace Hall even existed.
But in the design lab on the top floor of Wells Theater, three students and one professor are nearly as familiar with Old Main as any of the now-deceased students and faculty who once walked its halls. For the past six months, they have researched the building, studying old photographs from every available angle, and meticulously measuring the dimensions of windows, doors and even individual bricks. Each of those dimensions was recorded into a computer-assisted drafting program, and a virtual 3D model of the lost building gradually took shape. Previously, the program had been useful in designing theatre sets, but its capabilities took a large leap forward last winter when a crowdfunding campaign raised funds from Monmouth College donors to purchase 3D printers and a 3D scanner for the department. The acquisition of that technology allowed designs on the computer screen to be converted to solid, tangible models. A fascination with Monmouth College history, a love for Victorian architecture and an appreciation of the power of three-dimensional printing caused something to click in the mind of theatre professor Doug Rankin ’79. He envisioned that for the first time it would be possible to create a realistic 1:48 (quarter inch to the foot) scale model of Old Main in all its Italianate glory—despite the fact that architectural plans for the building were largely lost in the fire. Rankin knew it would take a team of dedicated workers and many hours of concentrated effort to pull the feat off, but fortunately a viable resource was at hand— Summer Opportunity for Intellectual Activity. The innovative SOFIA program allows students to come to campus three weeks before the start of classes in August to conduct in-depth research and inquiry with Monmouth faculty. Like many SOFIA projects, “Old Main Resurrected” was an unconventional idea that might not appeal to the average student. Fortunately for Rankin, two adventurous freshmen—Autumn Gay, a psychology major, and Harmony Miller, a Spanish major—accepted the challenge. But the project would not have gotten off the ground without the dedication of senior math major Morgan Holle, who spent countless hours last spring making calculations and measurements from vintage photographs
Above: Matt Mabee ’03 of the rapid prototyping lab at the University of Milwaukee School of Architecture explains to the SOFIA students how an actual Louis Sullivan frieze was 3D scanned, printed and converted to a plastic mold from which a copy could be cast in concrete. Left: Details as minute as the original pump are being 3D printed for the diorama.
Continued on page 14 WINTER 2016
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