Al Pacelli of Petra addresses the group as (l-r) David Coon, George Knight and CBC Past President Ron Goodin look on.
New Haven, CT –At its last meeting, the Connecticut Building Congress (CBC) took an architectural tour of New Haven followed by a discussion of Connecticut’s disappearing industrial buildings and a case study on two connected projects at Yale.
The evening started with a double-decker bus tour of New Haven’s historic architecture. A number of exemplary structures were reviewed and discussed by the tour’s hosts – Christopher Wigren, advisor to the New Haven Preservation Trust and Channing Harris, PLA, ASLA, senior associate of Towers/Golde.
Former engineer and current facilities manager of the Masonic Temple, Lenard Bucher, led a walking architecture and history tour of the building, the oldest Masonic Temple in the state.
After a light buffet dinner, members and guests heard from Michael Forino, project manager at the Connecticut Trust of Historic Preservation. He discussed CTHP’s current “Making Places” project that seeks to survey and catalogue the estimated 3,000 mill complexes in Connecticut. This program provides grants to non-profits and municipalities to fund research, consultancy and grant writing, among other services.
Forino pointed out that on the tour in and around central New Haven, attendees saw only one former industrial building left standing among the many that once drove the city’s economic prosperity.
Attendees were then treated to a review of a 2009 CBC Project Team Award recipient project – the renovation of the St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale.
On hand for the evening’s discussion were David Coon, senior associate, Pelli Clark Pelli Architects; George Knight, principal, Knight Architecture; and Al Pacelli, project executive, Petra Construction.
