Marshall University Architectural Guide
by Carlos Bozzoli, Architect
The John Deaver Drinko Academy

Cam Henderson Center and Gullickson Hall

  
 
A previous perspective of the Stadium from the 3rd. Avenue
  
Current use:
Houses a 10,000+-seat basketball arena, four secondary basketball courts, racquet ball courts, several offices and classrooms and a 800-seat swimming area, the Freder ick A. Fitch Natatorium.
Location: 
Third Avenue, north side of campus.
Designers:
Robert J. Bennet, from Morgantown, WV, and The Eggers Group, Architects, NY
Completed: 
1981
Name: 
For Eli Camden Henderson, basketball and football coach, from 1935 to 1955. The natatorium Frederick A. Fitch was named in honor of a professor and chair of physical education.

This huge facility provides a great gathering space (The Basketball arena) and other elements which partially surrounds Gullickson Hall. The internal circulation is a wide concourse, which passes between the Stadium and the Gullickson Hall, and function as a large mixing chamber of the entire facility. The dramatic form of the new element derives from the configuration of spectator seated within. The treatment of the four façades looks for visual unity with other campus buildings. The north and east facades are clad with fiberglass panels framed in aluminum, with translucent insulation, inclined at angles corresponding with interior seating and sight lines. The shape of the building reminds a butterfly, and this helps the heating system by accumulating hot air in the spectators seating zones, thus allowing a cost-efficient maintenance.
Cost efficiency and saving energy were important architectural issues in the 1980’s.
 
The stadium viewed from southeast: Note the butterfly shape of the roof  

The new buildings sums 136,000 SF, and the total amount, including Gullickson Hall (77,250 SF) is about 213,250 SF. The new facility includes the Frederick A. Fitch Natatorium that occupies the west side facing 3rd. Avenue, thus completing the wrap-around extension embracing Gullickson Hall. The connection with the already existing Gullickson Hall, at 18th. Street, is carefully rendered, at the point that only a keen observer could discover which part is either older or newest.