Hamilton, Ontario
Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects

At the James Stewart Centre in Ontario, a neo-Gothic exterior provides a ready foil to KPMB’s abstract and luminously Modernist interior

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	Photo © Edward Hueber
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Hamilton Hall was essentially a Modern concrete building dressed in Collegiate Gothic clothing,” says architect Bruce Kuwabara of the 1929 edifice at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “Our [interior] renovation aggressively stripped away layers of building fabric to reveal the deep structure and the truth of its construction.” Undressing the place ultimately laid bare a Modernist concrete frame. But the complete transformation of Hamilton Hall from a science-building-turned-student-center into the award-winning James Stewart Centre for Mathematics took the architectural equivalent of a mathematical equation.

The main challenge for Kuwabara’s firm, Toronto-based Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB), involved formulating a new vocabulary within the existing historic framework—leaving the dignified neo-Gothic exterior intact while turning dark labyrinths into spaces inspiring team-based, interactive study and research. For all the emphasis on community exchange, it was also important to give professors the option of privacy. KPMB worked with a board of mathematicians to shape this 49,000-square-foot renovation, calling for classrooms, lecture halls, labs, offices, a café, and a student lounge.

A highly abstract and Modern interior now resides in stark contrast to the Collegiate Gothic exterior. Within the original stone cladding and oriole windows, faculty offices, graduate study areas, and classrooms form a cluster along the perimeter, essentially creating a monastic sanctuary for serious thought. Old and new complement one another when, for example, shadows of a wrought-iron filigree dance across a planar Modernist composition of luminous, translucent glass panels with matte ceramic tile floors and blackboards.

Slate chalkboards weave through many of the halls and offices, acquiring mathematical scribbles and notations over the course of each day, along with dashes of witty graffiti. Just as the blackboards play functional and aesthetic roles, the corridors serve a dual purpose, operating as both passageways and meeting places (wide enough for tables and benches) that encourage group study, collaborative thinking, and discourse.

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