Designing a building to accommodate performances, lectures, the dining needs of Harvard first-years and the student center of the Harvard community is a daunting task.

Redesigning a 125 year-old building to house all those functions amidst and above the underground Loker Commons is even more daunting.

Despite these architectural obstacles, the commons are expected to open next fall, and the new dining area may be ready by the spring of 1996.

The challenge for Robert Venturi of the Philadelphia architectural firm Venturi, Scott, Brown and Associates was to modify venerable Memorial Hall's design to perform these duties without damaging its historic character.

"Restoration is bringing the building back to its original condition," Venturi said. "And at the same time there is renovation because the building has to adapt to modified uses."

The signs of this struggle for balance can be seen everywhere in Memorial Hall today.

The design for the new Great Hall, which will serve as a refectory to feed Harvard's 1600 first-years, attempts to balance the needs of the present and the traditions of the past.

Peter J. Riley, the senior project manager of Harvard Real Estate, said the furniture selected for the new first-year dining hall resembles older styles that would have been found there when the hall was used as the dining area decades ago.

Even the lights will be reminiscent of an older age, according to Venturi.

"From old photographs," Venturi said, "we're reproducing old lights from the dining hall, but inserting new [bulbs]. They give the greater light you need in the late 20th century."

Turning the Great Hall into a hightech dining hall necessitated expanding the north wing of Memorial Hall. In place of what had been classrooms, threelevels of kitchen and storage space and twoloading docks now occupy the side of the buildingclosest to Lowell Lecture Hall.

A complex system of ramps and elevators willensure that food travels from the loading docks tothe servery, where Riley says students will haveeasier access to their meals.

"The Freshman Union is very linear," Rileysaid. "Here, people can go here, there,everywhere."

The refectory's design reflects Venturi'sarchitectural philosophy: "Where you have to bemodern, you do not try to disguise it. You admitit and make it recessive."

For example, sprinklers are embedded in woodenbeams, with only the heads exposed. Pipes arerouted through shadows to make them lessnoticeable.

Even the loading docks accessible by truck fromKirkland Street, are recessed behind a wall.

In response to complaints that the cementstructures might detract from the overallappearance of the nineteenth century building,which was recently named one of Boston's top 10architectural examples, Riley said: "If you wantto feed 1600 people three times a day, you need tobring the goods in."

Downstairs in the Loker Commons, however, thebuilding's historical character wasn't as great aconcern. While the Great Hall already featuredstained glass windows and frescoed ceilings, thearea that will soon be Loker Commons is currentlyequal parts machinery, concrete and dirt.

Venturi said he appreciates the contrastbetween the restored upstairs and the radicallyrenovated downstairs.

"We are getting our kicks [in the basement] notfrom fancy architectural surfaces," Venturi said,"but from sophisticated lighting and [electronicdisplay] boards."

"So there will be a real contrast between thedownstairs and upstairs, the new and the old,"Venturi added.

The project's coordinators all say they agreethat it is essential for the Loker Commons to beversatile. Riley says he believes that the commonswill contain a pizza counter, a mexican foodcounter, a sweet shop, a selfcontained cafe, anewsstand, and something he calls "electronicservices."

"[Electronic services]," Riley said, "willinclude fax services, e-mail services, perhapscopying machines. There's going to be an ATMmachine on-site."

The commons will be divided by a "street," asRiley calls it. This walkway will provide accessto food counters on the left and huge booths onthe right and will terminate at a massiveelectronic display.

Director of Planning Philip Parsons called theseven by ten foot color display "an artisticevent."

"It's not a bulletin board," Parsons said."It's a decorative element. We hope there will bea lot of student involvement in using this as aform of artistic expression."

"I think it's a place where students will feelat home," Venturi said.

A double set of steps at the west end ofMemorial Hall will provide primary student accessto the commons.

While the excavations for the steps are visiblefrom outside Memorial Hall, work also continuesbeneath Sanders Theater.

There, a new "green room" has been built, whereperformers can wait before they go on stage.Sanders, the largest auditorium in the Yard,boasts no such facility now. Improved meetingrooms and bathrooms have also been constructed.

So concerned are the project's leaders withmaintaining the building's history that the marbleused in the counter of the men's room was salvagedfrom the walls of the old women's room, Rileysaid.

Beneath the stage, which has been extended sixfeet into the former seating area, a new pianolift has been added. It will be able to hoist agrand piano directly from the basement to thestage.

Working beneath Sanders Theater has posed someproblems for the workers, however. Riley recountsinstances when the $24.5 million project washalted during lectures for "quiet time.