
Tradition for Sale: On University Architecture - pepys
https://placesjournal.org/article/tradition-for-sale/
======
trgn
I think that new neo-gothic campus building looks fantastic. I think it is
much bolder to build something like this, than it is to build yet another
swoopy glass and steel "contemporary" building, which is the norm for any
institutions without any self-confidence.

Also, those buildings will age gracefully and never look stupid. We know this
because there are thousands of similar buildings, from the middle ages to the
revivals in the 1800s and 1900s that still don't look stupid after multiple
centuries.

~~~
mirceal
do they 'not look stupid' because they have been around such a long time that
they have trained our sense of what we consider a beautiful timeless building
to be _or_ are they actually beautiful timeless buildings?

In another 1000 year would steel "contemporary" buildings be considered
beautiful or not? Is beauty a requirement for a institution? Do you want a
building to be beautiful or functional? Who gets to decide what is beautiful?

~~~
DanAndersen
Beauty _is_ one of the functions of a building. Pursuing "form over function"
without considering beauty leaves you with a shantytown.

>Who gets to decide what is beautiful?

If one of the goals of a building is for people to visit it and to spend time
around it and to enjoy the experience, then the community of people who will
have to live with the building should have the most say about what is
beautiful for them. One issue with some architects is that they don't have
"skin in the game" when it comes to the buildings they design. They can come
up with interesting concepts and visions that may seem appealing as a model or
impressive to their peers, but if they don't have to walk by it every single
day, then their opinions about what is beautiful should not be a dominating
and overriding factor.

In the specific case of university donors, they have a particular vision for
what the aesthetics should be, and it's their support that makes the
university continue to run well and it's their personal connection to the
university that makes them care. Their objectives of beauty should be more
important in that particular case than a designer who will be moving on to the
next project.

~~~
hindsightbias
Have been trying to "get" a lot of modern architecture since I studied it back
in the day, but much of it from the 70's on looks dated to me. Buildings like
I.M. Pei's Dallas City Hall. Have to look hard to find a Guggenheim, which
(IMO) has stood the test of time.

So "modern" and functionalism is great, but I'd rather they figure out
something lasting before they experiment with a few $100M of my
taxes/tuition/donation.

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jswrenn
From the Wikipedia article on Morse College [0] (one of Saarinen's two 1962
residences lauded by this article):

> …in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen
> eliminated all right angles from the living areas. […] This resulted,
> notoriously, in two rooms which had eleven walls, none of which was long
> enough to put the bed against and still be able to open the door.

Is the mark of “good” architecture the degree to which it is hostile or
inscrutable to its inhabitants? Even this author admits that the new colleges
are an excellent execution of the Collegiate Gothic style; not only are they
_livable_ spaces, they are _beautiful_ ones!

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_College)

------
rdiddly
The linked article about USC's new "University Village" is pretty brutal too,
calling it "Disneyland meets Hogwarts."[1] Disneyland is a good call
metaphorically whenever something's elaborately fake, though I'm also
comparing all these projects to the Las Vegas strip. Lavish expenditure to
recreate something already done elsewhere, producing the strange feeling that
it's fake (a copy), yet it's real (somebody spent the money to make it
happen).

Is there no middle ground between uncompromisingly hostile modernism and ass-
backwards retro-fakery?

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-usc-
villa...](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-usc-village-
review-20170820-story.html)

------
brudgers
The semiotics of Gothic architecture prize religious orders and divinely
anointed kings. Notions of citizenship and universal political equality are
alien to it. It's why America represented its pursuit of democracy with the
new Federal style after winning its independence. Representing democratic
ideals are why America chose iconography from Athens for its neoclassic
buildings.

The problem with Gothic architecture in America is not so much that it looks
back, but where its gaze points. It points at Earls and Dukes and the
entrenchment of an entitled class.

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gumby
Oh come on, he answered his own question:

> To my earlier question as to why the university would pursue this course,
> the easy and obvious response is that the traditionalist architecture of the
> old colleges has become essential to Yale’s identity...

> When the decision was made [in 1958] to add two colleges ...Yale chose to go
> modern and to hire Eero Saarinen... he rose to the challenge magnificently.

> Admittedly, acceptance of Morse and Stiles Colleges was fitful. I’ll confess
> that when I entered Yale as a freshman in 1969 I was pleased to be assigned
> to ... [a] Gothic quadrangles — and not to one of the “new” residences.
> After taking Vincent Scully’s course in modern architecture and learning of
> Saarinen’s importance...

OK, so the traditional aping of Oxbridge is an important part of Yale's
branding and he himself is a testament to that. Yet he thinks they should do
something essentially inauthentic? As he says elsewhere himself in this essay,
dorms are different from academic buildings, and are a crucial part of
branding.

MIT also built some Saarinen dorms and I remember people living in them being
unhappy with them just on a functional basis.

This would be just as good as a parody of the out-of-touch humanist, except I
know it's authentic.

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jessaustin
_As an engaged alumnus and attentive to such matters, I do not recall any open
search for an architect for the major new buildings — the selection just
happened._

This is a pernicious problem facing Ivy League institutions. Some
administrator might complain bitterly that the entire process had been widely
publicized and that anyway qualified architects would have known to call, but
further review will discover that all publicity took place on a physical
bulletin board and several private mailing lists. The faculty have not held
the administration to account on numerous questionable decisions small and
large, and now the bureaucrats feel they're accountable to no one.

------
Chaebixi
> With their new architecture, universities all too often abdicate leadership
> in promoting artistic innovation as they pander to plutocratic donors.

Meh. I'd rather have this than more unlivable architectural ego-trips.

------
didgeoridoo
It's pretty strange for Yale to have named a college after Benjamin Franklin,
who had virtually no association with Yale or New Haven beyond a 1753 honorary
degree — especially because he is so tightly connected to Ivy League rival
UPenn. I've heard some people half-jokingly begin referring to it as "Aretha
Franklin" college instead. She is at least equally qualified (her honorary
degree was in 2010)!

~~~
MLR
The article gives an explanation for this.

~~~
alistairSH
tl;dr - a major donor ($250 million) is a Franklin fan. He cut a check for
nearly half the estimated cost of the college, so they named it in honor of
one of his heroes.

~~~
Chaebixi
> tl;dr - a major donor ($250 million) is a Franklin fan. He cut a check for
> nearly half the estimated cost of the college, so they named it in honor of
> one of his heroes.

That's honestly way better than naming it after yet another major donor.

------
clay_to_n
This article is spot-on. I've seen this firsthand at both USC and Wash U. in
St. Louis, and the author's conclusion (that universities think building in
the style of their oldest buildings will give them more donor money) is
correct in my view from how the universities talk about it.

It's sad that top private universities today are so revenue-focused that
they're okay with dropping any semblance of innovation when it comes to
architecture and design. But these universities don't care about their
architecture schools - those schools don't put out enough rich alumni to bring
in the cash.

At USC a few years ago, the architecture school was stuck with old (and few)
3d printers - I don't remember the model, but students complained and got
nowhere with the faculty as far as better equipment. Next door, the USC Jimmy
Iovine and Andre Young Academy of Arts, Technology, and Business of Innovation
(read: try to make startups) opened their first class with a whole lab of 3d
printers and laser cutters, including a Form 1 (which was quite nice at the
time for the price). The school doesn't take architecture seriously. And I
don't see how that would change anytime soon.

~~~
joelwilliamson
American universities being fairly conservative architecturally is hardly a
new development. Look at how popular faux-Gothic is at any Ivy League school.
They are all full of modern buildings trying to look like Oxbridge.

~~~
clay_to_n
Absolutely, it's not a new thing. I don't mean to be implying it's a new
development, or limited to these schools. Just expressing how sad and
frustrating it can feel as an architecture student at a good university. It's
talked about a lot among students, and I liked this article for sharing it
among a wider audience.

------
DanAndersen
I went to the University of Utah for my undergrad degree. Smack dab in the
middle of campus is a looming Brutalist monstrosity in the form of the BEHS
Building [0]. Students often joke that there must be some sort of horrific
psychology experiments happening behind those "barred" window frames. One
problem withe the U of U's architecture is that it is incoherent, a mish-mash
of buildings made to whatever style seemed like a good idea at the time.

In contrast, Purdue University (where I am doing grad school) has done a great
job of keeping most of the buildings as a coherent whole. There are design
variations from the older Purdue Student Union [1] to the more experimental
Armstrong Engineering Building [2], but the general theme of brickwork makes
things generally fit together and connects the whole campus to its "1800s
Midwestern college" roots. It's a pleasant place to be and I think the
architecture contributes to a sense of community.

The author of the article is I think extremely misguided in his arguments. He
seems to imply that older architecture forms and traditions have no place in a
"forward-looking" "globalized future", as if the local traditions and
practices of a space have to all be eroded away into a future of glass/steel
boxes in the style of international airports -- as if novelty for its own sake
should be the main guiding practice.

>It is worth pointing out that in those same years the university was not only
choosing to abandon its historicist architecture; it was also working
actively, if belatedly, to renounce the quotas that had long limited the
enrollment of diverse groups — Jews, African Americans, Asian Americans,
Latinos — and beginning the deliberations that would lead to coeducation.

This line of argument is uncharitable at best; it implies that historical
architecture is somehow permanently stained by bad practices done during that
time period. It's the same sort of hand-wringing arguments you see about how
games like "Cuphead" that use an old-timey animation style are "unsettling"
because some actual old-timey animations would be considered racist in our
time [3]. I'd much rather live in a world where we can take the good from the
past and carry it forward, rather than seek to reinvent ourselves entirely
from the last generation.

Traditional architecture is a bit of a pet issue of mine, mostly because of
its public nature. I'm all for experimentation and breaking the mold in most
art forms, but architecture is inherently public -- you can't easily look away
from a building that's an eyesore than you could a painting. For that reason I
tend to think that architecture should favor more traditional/conservative
forms.

There's an interesting irony about the article, in complaining that this push
for traditional architecture in colleges is being pushed by a wealthy
plutocratic elite. These old styles are being pushed for because the donors
like them, because they contribute to a general sense of charm and nostalgia
that keeps a community cohesive. People in general have a positive attitude
toward more traditional forms. If anything, it's a different sort of elite --
modern architects -- who are attempting to impose something on these campuses
for the sake of their own experimentation.

[0]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Behs_uni...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Behs_univ_of_utah.jpg)
[http://protophoto.com/images/modelun/DSC_5605.JPG](http://protophoto.com/images/modelun/DSC_5605.JPG)

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Purdue_S...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Purdue_Student_Union.JPG)

[2] [https://abm-website-
assets.s3.amazonaws.com/labdesignnews.co...](https://abm-website-
assets.s3.amazonaws.com/labdesignnews.com/s3fs-
public/legacyimages/RD/Lab_Design_News/Articles/2008/09/ArmstrongBuild.jpg)

[3] [https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-
spe...](https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-spectre-of-
fleischer-animation/)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I went to UW for undergrad and UU for grad school. UU was definitely a mish
mash of whatever was modern for the time, but I would argue it was also poorly
executed. In contrast, EPFL, which as a European university is immune to neo
gothic architecture, did much better with whatever was modern st the time (to
a pre oil embargo space ship plastic building to the most recent Swiss cheese
addition).

