Martina Tognato Guaqueta

The temporary closure of the Susan Dwight Bliss Room in Hubbard Hall, which began in 2020, is due to a lack of climate control in the building. While the College is currently embarking on a planning and design process for a new campus construction master plan, the Bliss Room will remain closed for the indefinite future. In an email to the Orient, Director of Special Collections & Archives Kat Stefko explained the College chose to close the room to avoid the degradation of the book collection, antique Italian ceiling and French woodwork.

“It is one of my very favorite spaces on campus, and I regret we cannot share it,” Stefko wrote.

Stefko noted the collection in the Bliss Room has been relocated to a climate-controlled warehouse owned by the College. The books are still available for student use, and she encouraged students to make online requests to have books sent to the Special Collections reading room.

With no HVAC (heating, ventilation or air conditioning), Hubbard Hall’s temperature and humidity cannot be maintained within the specific ranges needed to preserve the quality of the Bliss Room’s special collections. The building’s lack of climate control was also behind the movement of the Arctic Museum in 2022, which had been housed in Hubbard since 1967. Whether or not Hubbard might get an HVAC system is being discussed in current conversations with the campus master planners, Ayers Saint Gross, for future construction projects, according to Stefko. The room will remain closed indefinitely while these conversations are still taking place.

“Hubbard is being considered alongside all of the priorities that emerge through the Campus Plan process currently underway. Even when the Plan is adopted next fall, any specifics on timing may be left a bit open-ended due to funding requirements and project sequencing,” Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration & Treasurer Matt Orlando wrote in an email to the Orient when asked about plans for the Bliss Room.

While the Bliss Room’s doors have been closed since the start of the pandemic, the space previously used to be open to students more regularly, such as during Student Night at the Museum. The closure was a surprise to alumnus Benjamin Bousquet ’20, who would visit the room when it was open for special events or while working his job in Special Collections & Archives.

“It’s a bit of a bummer if it’s closed indefinitely,” Bousquet said. “I know the rooms in Special Collections, where most of the books are, are temperature controlled. So, it makes sense that they would want to move the other books to a temperature controlled space too, but it’s a really pretty room…. I think it’s a beautiful space.”

The future of the room is unclear. While the books have been relocated and can easily be moved again, the built-in furnishings, like the antique ceiling and mantelpiece, are not as transferable. Stefko explained in her email that, with these delicate pieces remaining in the room, the closure helps prevent any big changes in temperature when the doors are opened and keeps the climate as consistent as possible.

Still, it is possible for the built-in pieces eventually to be moved, as the entire room used to be installed in the home of Susan Dwight Bliss in New York and was moved to Bowdoin with the aid of architecture firm McKead, Mead and White, Stefko noted. Thus, from the simple addition of an HVAC to the total move of the room, there are many possibilities for the Bliss Room’s future.

“My own hope is that the master plan will call for physically reintegrating the Bliss Room with the library in some manner. The room has been moved once; could it be moved again? When I dream big, I can imagine it being a central part of a grand reading room in a new library building,” Stefko wrote.