In observation of Pomfret School’s hundredth anniversary and in response to its recent growth to 300 students, the School planned a new " Centennial Building." This 20,000 square foot arts and academic building would include 2-D and 3-D art studios; carpentry, metal, and welding shops; classrooms; and a 125-seat auditorium.

The campus plan, originally designed by Ernest Flagg, a well-known turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts architect, had been abandoned in recent campus development. When Centerbrook was hired to design Pomfret’s new Centennial Building they moved the Pyne Building, once the school infirmary, to allow the Centennial Building to be placed on axis with Flagg’s historic four-story School Building on the main campus quadrangle. This strengthened the academic core at the center of the campus and reestablished the principles of quadrangles and axes from Flagg’s original plan.

The Centennial Building sits on a hill sloping to the west, which allows on grade entry at two levels. The finishes are simple, with exposed ceilings. The auditorium doubles as a black box theater, with cable trays and a pipe grid for lighting.

The classrooms and seminar rooms are divided between the two upper floors. In order to mix art and scholastics, the painting and sculpture studios share the classroom floors. They are located at the north end of the building to get even, indirect daylight.

At the center of the building, behind the front doors and across the quadrangle from the old School Building, is an oval entry, called the Fauxtunda in honor of its shallow, but wishful, domelike ceiling fabricated from a tangle of painted boards. This room leads to stairs up and down, and though it is only slightly wider than a hall, serves to celebrate Pomfret's next hundred years.

 

Photography © Steve Rosenthal