Dental School’s 100th Anniversary of Historic Evans Building	Print Issue
,

Dental Medicine Dean Kinane with Penn Dental students cutting the Evans Building 100th birthday cake.

Penn Dental Medicine launched a year of celebration late last month to mark the 100th Anniversary of its historic Thomas W. Evans Building with a school-wide event.

Students, faculty and staff shared an Evans Building 100th birthday cake at lunch, joined in photo ops with a life-size replica of Thomas Evans and continued the celebration later in the day with a special gathering that featured a presentation and Q&A on the Evans Building Centennial Renaissance project, the major renovation project planned for the Evans Building.

The Evans Building Centennial Renaissance project will be the largest transformation in the building’s 100-year history, changing and updating the use and flow of most areas on all four levels while fundamentally respecting the building’s historic character. The project’s key components include a new preclinical lab and continuing education training center, a large modern clinic, a reimagined library and a variety of new study spaces. Work on this renovation project is set to begin in the fall of 2015.

Dedicated on February 22 and 23, 1915, the Evans Building at 40th and Spruce streets  was built on the site of the family home of Thomas Evans, a Philadelphia native who became the dentist to the courts of Europe during France’s Second Empire and whose estate made possible the construction of this iconic building.  The Evans Building today remains the hub of the School’s clinical care and instruction.

“The Evans Building is a fantastic, historic structure,” said Penn Dental Medicine’s Morton Amsterdam Dean, Denis Kinane. “As it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2015, we are taking the next steps needed to get it ready for the next 100 years.”

This event was the launch of yearlong celebration commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Evans Building and the beginning of the Evans Building Centennial Renaissance project.  Among the planned events:

• WHYY interview with Dean Kinane on the life and times of Dr. Evans aired on The Pulse.

• A life-size replica of Dr. Evans engaged Penn Dental Medicine students, faculty, staff and visitors, reflecting on the School’s history and generating excitement about the upcoming Evans Building transformation. 

• Evans Collection Exhibition, from July 19-November 7 at the Arthur Ross Gallery, there will be an exhibition of paintings and decorative arts from the collection of the estate of Dr. Evans.

• Ceremonial “wall breaking” for the Evans Building Centennial Renaissance project will take place November 4.