On April 24, 2026, the Kenyon community gathered to celebrate the life of visionary architect Graham Gund ’63 H’81. The following remarks were given by Grace Galligan ’26.
My name is Grace Galligan, I am a senior English major. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all today.
I entered into my Kenyon College education through the doors of the Lowry Center. It was four years ago. I remember every detail. I was nervous, jittery and my hair frizzed from the late August humidity. My twin XL bedding and shower shoes were packed into our rental car in the parking lot. There was a line for registration that snaked down the Lowry lawn. Bouncing from one foot to the other, I waited with my parents until we finally reached the glass doors. I took a second to breathe before going inside, knowing I was stepping out of one life into the next.
I didn’t know it yet, but Graham Gund’s spirit was there. His architectural vision had built the Lowry Center’s sprawl in the basin of the hillside. It was our first introduction, but soon I met his other creations. The hush of Chalmers. The fortitude of Gund Gallery. The quaint English cottages. And later on, the twin companions Winkler and Thomas. Not to mention, the cousins Lowell and Oden.
One by one, I pressed my life into these buildings. I started going to yoga classes in Room 221 at the Lowry Center. Those classes grew into a passion for yoga, which grew into pursuing my yoga teacher training, which grew into me being the one teaching the class. My Sunday class became the ritual that punctuated my week. I’ve gotten to know the group of regulars well as we carve out an hour of our busy weeks to breathe, stretch, and take care of ourselves. I’ve also spent hours wandering through the stacks of Chalmers, or in an Oden classroom reading about the witch trials, or on the porch of Keithley writing my thesis. I’ve welcomed families to campus in Lowell House as tour guide. Senior year, I moved into a Winkler apartment and watched the seasons turn over from our windows overlooking the river.
Gund’s buildings are not just stone and steel; his buildings are the lives we live within them. For me, they contain all these memories. My Sunday morning yoga classes. The nights I stayed up laughing on the window seat of my living room. The moments basking in the rare winter sunlight as it fills Chalmer’s atrium. He created the spaces for our communities, our yoga flows, our midnight study sessions, our game nights, our hard conversations, our writings, our beginnings, our endings. I will be forever grateful for Gund’s legacy, for this world he gave me, full of gathering and light.
Soon, getting sooner by the second, I will step out of my Kenyon College education through the same Lowry Center doors. I will leave this hill behind. But Gund reminds me, your fingerprints on a place last. So I know there will always be a piece of me here, just as there will always be a piece of him.