Newly Renovated Weston Alumni Lecture Hall Officially Opens
The newly renovated Weston Alumni Lecture Hall, located on the ground floor of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, is officially open. The lecture hall, formerly the Weston Lecture Hall, is named for the school’s alumni, whose donations helped fund the renovations.
“This event has been a long time coming,” said Hillier College of Architecture and Design Dean Branko Kolarevic at a September 30 ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the lecture hall. “We’re very pleased you are here today to acknowledge our friends for their exemplary support. All of them made the renovation of the lecture hall possible.”
"The new Weston Alumni Lecture Hall was designed by New York-based Marvel Architects and received donations from alumni, including a chair-naming campaign that invited alumni to submit messages to be engraved on the chairs in the lecture hall."
The new Weston Alumni Lecture Hall was designed by New York-based Marvel Architects and received donations from 25 alumni, including a chair-naming campaign that invited alumni to submit messages to be engraved on the chairs in the lecture hall.
The Weston Alumni Lecture Hall consists of two spaces - a 50-seat hall and a 160-seat hall. Both are newly equipped with Epson LCD projectors, integrated sound amplification, new interior wall, floor and ceiling treatments, and new seats and audio-visual equipment.
Jennifer Olson, an architect at Marvel Architects, was the lead project architect for the project as she has been for many other NJIT projects, including the phased Central King Building renovation, instructional laboratory and other lecture hall renovations on campus.
“I like to think architects and designers matter,” said Kolarevic. “I thank Guido Hartray, Jennifer Olson and Chit Yee Ng and everyone at Marvel Architects. I have to say they’ve done a marvelous job.”
Kolarevic noted that enrollment at the Hillier College is up 15 percent since last year. Said Kolarevic, “It's a big jump in enrollment and I like to think our upgraded facilities have something to do with it.”
“A great lecture hall is really important for the school,” said Donald E. Henry, who graduated in 1980 from the Hillier College and is now Managing Principal at New York-based Urbahn Architects, where four other NJIT graduates are now working. “NJIT has spurred some big alumni. I thought it was important to give back.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony preceded the main event: a lecture from Marion Weiss, cofounder of New York-based WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism and the Graham Chair Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What’s extraordinary about your school is that it does not see any boundaries with your disciplines,” Weiss told a lecture hall packed with faculty and students. “If projects are really a form of research, we’ve never been in a better moment.”