University of Pennsylvania – College Hall, West Wing Façade Replacement and Renovation
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Project Description

Originally constructed in 1871 and designed by Thomas Webb Richards, College Hall was the first building on The University of Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia campus and stands proudly today in the geographic center of campus as a prominent and iconic symbol of the University’s important and historic significance. The recently completed College Hall, West Wing Renovation project was designed to preserve the architectural integrity of the building, enhance its longevity, and upgrade the facility to meet the standards of modern performance, energy efficiency, functionality and accessibility.

MPG performed a comprehensive exterior masonry restoration and façade replacement portion of the project as the most visually impactful and publicly prominent feature of the overall undertaking. The once beautiful, then long deteriorated serpentine stone exterior of the façade had been in need of drastic intervention for decades, receiving several previous campaigns of temporary consolidation and patching, keeping the façade on what could be considered life support. In this project, the beyond rehabilitation serpentine exterior was surgically removed from the mass masonry backup construction and replaced with approximately 10,000 new cast stone replica units. The building elevations were laser scan surveyed as well as physically measured to verify and ensure that the painstakingly developed layout of the new replica units would fit with precision and limited field adjustment. The structural integrity of the fieldstone backup walls was enhanced through consolidating both the interior and exterior face with pneumatically applied grout. Various structural modifications were made throughout the interior multi-wythe brick walls including modification of existing openings and creation of new masonry openings. Finally, a light-touch restoration maintenance and cleaning campaign of the East & Central Wings was also performed. The East and Central Wings underwent a similar façade replacement performed by MPG in the late 1980’s & early 1990’s.