Located
on Science Hill, The Bass Center provides for accommodation of research
laboratories, faculty and administrative offices, and teaching space,
while serving to connect and consolidate departmental faculties. This
bar-like building forms the northern closure of an important quadrangle.
The design intention was to provide not only a major scientific facility
but also to establish and complete the enclosure of a quad and its four
disparate buildings. The architectural language of the new building
was to reconcile and stabilize the divergence of styles, the neo-gothic
of Sterling, the high modernism of the Kline tower, the neutral curtain
wall of Gibbs. An existing covered walkway, with its massive round columns,
was incorporated into the design. The bar of the new laboratory wing
is terminated by turreted corner pieces, a romantic arched bridge, and
an expressive entry facade on Whitney Avenue with the adjacent grand
stairs leading to the main entrance on the courtyard level. The combination
of materials used, the red brick and brownstone banding and the metal
and glass idiom represent an amalgam of the university’s existing
palette and modern aesthetics.
In developing the design concept for this building, determining factors
were the Department’s working style, which is characterized as
highly interactive and collaborative, and the need for flexibility.
The new building reflects this attitude and supports interaction while
focusing the organizational relationships of the diverse elements of
the program. Laboratories and faculty offices face each other across
a long corridor, and a 96-seat lecture hall and the third floor meeting
room with a view of East Rock are placed in the end pavilion on the
east side of the building.
The “main street” corridor flows through the whole length
of the wing and extends to two bridges, linking the Bass Center to the
adjacent buildings and promoting interaction between the building’s
occupants. The small sky-lit atrium with a generous staircase acts as
a vertical connector and a place for unstructured encounter.
