Kallmann McKinnell and Wood
Posner Hall, schematic design
perspective rendering (ca. 1990)
CRS Sirrine's master plan envisioned a smallish underground addition to GSIA, but the eventual program yielded a three-story building that is capable of supporting an additional story. A double-loaded passage lined with classrooms, lecture halls, and offices could have yielded a simple rectangular building. The building broadens in both width and depth, however, as the site drops in grade toward the south, setting the scene for a dramatic entry off a raised podium.
Kallmann McKinnell and Wood devotes special attention to matters of entry and exit and internal circulation, as reflected in the monumental entry, formal stair, and two-story interior atrium of Posner Hall. The entry configuration echoes that of the firm's Shad Hall at the Harvard School of Business (1989). The atrium has a counterpart at the Washington University School of Business (1983).
The work of Kallmann McKinnell and Wood also commonly features something difficult or idiosyncratic (which could also be said about Hornbostel's work). At Posner Hall (and Shad Hall), this quirky element is the single column that splits and blocks the otherwise welcoming entryway. Both the concavity of the entry and its partial blockage also have significance in the local context, echoing the facade of Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall across the street. Posner Hall's brickwork, ornamental striping, and overhanging eaves also allude to Hornbostel's buildings. The metal grilles that form the eaves are a lighter contemporary take on Hornbostel's highly ornamented terra-cotta eaves.
Most of this happens far from the progenitor GSIA building, now extended for the third time, to which Posner Hall turns its back. The new work dominates the old in both scale and stance. Posner Hall is an elegant part, but the whole is a somewhat awkward whole.