The home of the Maine State Theater and a key campus performance space, Pickard Theater is located in Memorial Hall on a main quad at Bowdoin College. The building was renovated and an addition was designed to house a new experimental theater in response to the College’s expanding dance and theater programs.
To invoke a more intimate theatrical experience and improve seat count, new side balconies were added in Pickard. Trusses in the building’s mansard roof area were modified to create a clear-span dance studio. A new double-height lobby sensitively links the experimental theater addition to the historic structure.
AIA Maryland Design Award Winner
“Upon completion, projects often witness the excitement of the opening of a new facility. Certainly we experienced this ten-fold… More telling of the success of this project and the quality of the work that GWWO brought to bear is the ongoing appreciation that the college and the department continue to witness a year after re-opening.” – Michael Schiff-Verre, Technical Director, Pickard & Wish Theaters
Details
- 610-seat Pickard Theater
- 200-seat “black box” Wish Theater
- Rehearsal spaces, dance studio, dressing rooms and scene & costume shops
- Full acoustical isolation between theaters and adjacent spaces