Lenfest Hall

Mercersburg Academy's embrace of contemporary architecture is evident in this strong Postmodern design at the entrance to the school. It blends the traditional forms of the Academic Gothic in its towers and expression of multiple functions with Postmodern elegance in the warm yellow stone walls that nod to the light hue of the campus masterpiece, the chapel (FR10.4). Its presence on a formerly sacrosanct front green suggests a reorientation away from sports to academics as the front stage image of the school. Another important site on the green was filled in 2006 by the ambitious Burgin Center for the Arts by New York City architects Polshek Partnership. In a campus of graceful Gothic and Georgian facades, this is more big box, a cubic volume surrounded by a retro 1950s arcade of slender pillars reminiscent of a California department store that sheds an interior ambulatory opening onto galleries, concert hall, studios, and practice rooms.