Architectural Record Features Stuart Weitzman Hall 

How should a contemporary addition respond to a historic building? Should it recede, allowing the original architecture to remain dominant, or establish an identity of its own? 

In its October 2026 issue, Architectural Record considers that question through Stuart Weitzman Hall, describing KieranTimberlake’s renovation and expansion of the University of Pennsylvania’s historic Morgan Building as a project that demonstrates architects need not choose between the two.  

That balance is fundamental to the project. Rather than treating the 1892 Morgan Building as a fixed artifact, the design begins with what could be retained, revealed, and put back to work. Much of its load-bearing masonry and timber structure remained intact even after more than a century of changing uses. The renovation exposes that structure wherever possible including transforming a previously inaccessible attic into an expansive studio for planning students while a new four-story addition provides flexible studios, classrooms, offices, makerspaces, and gallery space.  

The result is less a contrast between an old building and a new one than an ongoing conversation between them that preserves evidence of the building’s past while giving the Weitzman School of Design new spaces for making, teaching, gathering, and exchange. 

Read the full feature, “Like a Good Neighbor,” by Joann Gonchar, FAIA, in the October 2026 issue of Architectural Record.