Art: The Campus: Architecture's Show Place

• Share

IN 18th century America, the best architecture generally was done for church and government. In the 19th century, the U.S.'s energetic new merchants demanded and got structures that achieved power through honesty. For the first half of this century, the office builder tended to get the great result. Now the U.S.'s colleges and universities clearly have become architecture's prime patrons.

The educators had almost no choice. Faced with the problem of educating the children produced in the post-World War II "baby boom," nearly every college has sought—often desperately—to expand its facilities. Since 1960 the University of California has added three entirely new campuses and 77 major buildings on its six older campuses to cope with an increase in enrollment of 58,000. The State University of New York, which in 1962 had small and relatively unknown campuses scattered around the state, has almost tripled in size to serve its present 195,000 students.

Such a tremendous amount of necessary new construction was obviously an opportunity for architects. For one thing, they were released from the relentless cost-per-square-foot imperatives of rental space that now make an egg-crate desolation of most city buildings.

For another, the colleges, as custodians of culture, accept what amounts to a moral obligation to recognize and foster quality in their buildings. Says Bernard P. Spring, dean of the architectural school at City College of New York: "We have so much good architecture at universities for the same reason that we have so much unrest there. The college is the most open institution around nowadays—open to ideas, to innovation, to change."

After You, Please. The most advanced designs for theaters and research labs, not to mention libraries, have found their first expression in university buildings. Long spans, hyperbolic paraboloid roofs, computerized designs and other advanced structural techniques often are used with unabashed gusto.

Stylistically, the colleges seem to favor fortress-like buildings. Whether made of humble brick, crisp steel or powerfully molded concrete, the structures somehow look ready for any attack. A case in point is the rust-colored, 13-story agronomy tower designed by Ulrich Franzen for the State University of New York at Cornell. It not only looks eminently easy to defend but also is assertive in its own right. With good reason. The agricultural college, long treated as a stepchild by Cornell, needed to get back into view. While marking the ag college with the tower, however, Franzen respectfully designed and sited the $6,500,000 structure to defer to, rather than overwhelm its neighbors. "It is," he says, "like someone who says, 'After you,' in an elevator."