Hood opens to great acclaim

The coda to a week of gala events opening the Hood Museum of Art was the arrival in New England of Hurricane Gloria. A few dignitaries' flights were cancelled because of rains and high winds, but otherwise the show went on. More than 4,000 people passed through the museum's portals during the opening week for black-tie receptions, tours, lectures, and the formal dedication ceremony. Following are some of the celebratory comments made by participants and observers:

"Harvey Hood would have been very proud ifhe could have known that Dartmouth had builtthe Hood between the Hop and Wilson Hall.It was not an easy thing to do."

Barbara Hood, widow of Harvey Hood '18, the museum's chief donor

"It was very important to sustain the humanities at the College it was a balancing investment, in a society inevitably moving itsstrength to technology."

President David T. McLaughlin '54 as quoted in The New York Times

"The.study of art and of human culture atDartmouth is truly a collegial endeavor. Theopportunities for community learning offeredby the new Hood Museum of Art are as limitless as the scope of our collection."

Jacquelynn Baas, director of the Hood Museum

"[The Hood Museum] is an extraordinary tour de force of classicism inverted and all ofthe architecture of the 20th century recapitulated with brilliant inventiveness. . . a sereneand natural transition between the modernismof the Hopkins Center and the Romanesque ofWilson."

Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of The New York Times, in a lecture during the opening week

"The new Hood Museum at Dartmouth College is a fascinating, disorderly building filledwith wit and surprise. It's a successful andeven marvelous work."

Robert Campbell in The Boston Globe

"[lt is] one of the finest examples of post-modernist architecture produced to date [with]enough examples of brilliantly innovative design and elegant spatial definitions to satisfyanyone's taste."

Critic Theodore Wolff in The Christian Science Monitor

The opening festivities for the Hood Museumof Art included receptions ...

. . . tours of the art and artifacts featured inits ten galleries . . .

. . . lectures, including one by Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of The New York Times . . .

... and a formal ribbon-cutting with, fromleft to right, Jacquelynn Baas, Barbara Hood,and President David T. McLaughlin '54.