$2 Million U.S. Grant Aids School of Design

The Graduate School of Design has received approval of an application for $2 million in federal funds under the Higher Education Facilities Act. It will now begin a search for $3 million more in order to begin construction of a new building at the North end of the Yard.

William A. Doebele, associate dean for development, said yesterday that he hoped the building would be completed in three-and-one-half to four years. It will be constructed on the site of Hunt Hail, one of the four buildings now occupied by the Design School.

The Design School's other major building, Robinson Hall located a few steps from Hunt in the northeast corner of the Yard, will be sold to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for about $900,000, Doebele said. The new building will consolidate all activities from Hunt and Robinson, as well as an old book bindery on Memorial Drive and the basement of Memorial Hall.

Though it will be more than twice as large as Hunt and Robinson combined, the new building will "be in harmony" with its surrounding in the Yard, Doebele said. Harold L. Goyette, planning officer for the University, said the new building's height would probably not extend beyond the roof line of Memorial Church.

There is still a slight possibility that the new Design School will not be constructed on the Hunt Hail site. At least four other choices have been studied as a place for the building, but all were rejected for one reason or another.

"The Faculty of Arts and Science would obviously like the whole Yard, but the problem is to find a suitable alternative site," Doebele said. Goyette said that getting some other site "might depend on [land] acquisition."

He said the University is not seeking a specific site for the Design School, but "we are always looking at and analyzing properties offered by realtors to Harvard." If another site were made available, the Design School would have to gain approval of the new location from the federal government.

The new building will cost slightly more than $6 million--$2 million from the federal government, a little more than $3 million from the fund raising campaign, and the $900,000 from the sale of Robinson.

The fund drive will officially begin this spring with a goal of $11.6 million. A 20-man committee, headed by financier John L. Loeb '24, has already been appointed to head the campaign. Besides supporting construction, the money will be used to establish additional tenured professors, expand the scholarship and fellowship program, and support the School's library.