The Billie Tsien and Tod Williams-designed renovation begins partial demolition of the museum Partial demolition of the the Charles Moore-designed Hood Museum at Dartmouth College recently got underway, part of a renovation plan formulated by husband-and-wife architecture team Billie Tsien and Tod Williams that began earlier this fall.
Designed in 1985, the Hood Museum, located on the Green, the quadrangle lawn on Dartmouth?s campus in Hanover, was one of the key works of Charles Moore, whom critic Paul Goldberger called "our age's greatest architectural enthusiast."

And here?s my photo of the Hood Museum entrance, from last summer, with much filter. pic.twitter.com/aeIrRmNMer? Alexandra Lange (@LangeAlexandra) March 28, 2016
According to Kevin Keim, the Charles Moore Foundation director, the design's strength and importance come from the way it meditates space, linking the Romanesque, 19th-century, brick-clad Wilson Hall and the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Wallace Harrison in 1962. It's all about context, while also offering a unique reclamation of industrial space and industrial architecture, an aesthetic choice much more uncommon in the '80s.

The plan sparked criticism when it was unveiled in March, since it would convert the open courtyard into a covered concourse. Tsien and Williams argue there concept would add 40 percent more gallery space with keeping much of Moore?s work intact; critics...