The steeple on Olive Tjaden Hall, home of the Department of Art, has
made an old campus skyline new again.
The last time the Arts Quad sported two steeples -- Tjaden (then Franklin) and McGraw Hall -- was some 40 years ago. Olive Tjaden Hall's original steeple was damaged in a storm in the 1950s and dismantled because of safety concerns. But now, as part of a $7.77 million renovation project to bring the building into the future, a steeple has been erected to call attention to the building's past.
With the thrill of a high-wire act and the precision of a heart surgeon, the 30-foot, 20-ton slate-shingled steeple was lifted into place atop Olive Tjaden Hall Sept. 23 by a giant crane.
More than 150 onlookers, many armed with video cameras, gathered on the Arts Quad and on the steps of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art to watch the crane hoist the steeple some 70 feet into the air from the Arts Quad lawn to its permanent home on the building's southwest tower.
The crane began to lift the steeple at 10:30 a.m., and within minutes the steeple was suspended several feet above the tower. It hovered for more than an hour so that workers inside the tower could help guide it into place. Assisting in the effort were two men in a steel cage, hung from a second crane.
"There were no major complications, except it took longer than we anticipated to position the steeple into place," said project manager Robert Blakeney, in Cornell's Planning Design and Construction office. "Sudden wind gusts made the last-minute maneuverings a bit difficult."
Once the steeple was seated correctly, it was bolted into place, and the steel frame was welded to the tower.
A finial -- an ornamental top -- was placed on the steeple later in the day. A series of five arches cast in aluminum, the finial was designed by Roberto Bertoia, associate professor and chair of the art department, who was assisted by graduate art students Marc Parson and Will Pergl.
In addition to the steeple replacement, the renovation project includes the restructuring of the building's interior, which will increase the amount of available space by 5,000 square feet. The original timber interior has been replaced with floor plates of steel and concrete. The building is expected to be ready for classes in January 1998.
Most of the money raised to renovate Tjaden Hall is from the estate of Olive Tjaden Van Sickle '25, who died in March of this year. Tjaden, for whom the building was named in 1981, entered Cornell at the age of 15 and completed her degree in four years -- as opposed to the conventional five years for a bachelor's degree in architecture. She is considered by many to be an architectural pioneer, as few women in the 1920s sought careers in the field. Her work was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair, and she was honored as one of the "40 under 40" most promising architects in the country by the New York Architectural League. Her New York practice designed and supervised the construction of more than 2,000 buildings, including churches, commercial buildings and mansions.
Olive Tjaden Hall originally was Franklin Hall, after Benjamin Franklin, and it housed programs in physical sciences and electrical engineering. It opened for classes in 1883.
The general contractor for the renovation project is Streeter Associates of Elmira; the architect is Schwartz/Silver Architects of Boston; the project architect is Mark Schatz; and the Cornell facilities construction manager is Brian Grinter.
Below: An early photo of Franklin Hall, now Tjaden Hall, taken in the late 19th century. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections/Carl A. Kroch Library
