To the Editor:

"At Franklin & Marshall, Another New Building by Charles Z. Klauder" (The Chronicle, October 19) merits a reply, not to defend the college's decisions but to elucidate some of the tensions implicit in the Janus-like role of institutions of higher education as keepers of the human tradition and as shapers of our collective future.

College and university building is different from most construction today in its longer time horizon: Whereas businesses and families erecting new structures may plan for a generation or two, colleges and universities think of centuries. The lessons of Modernist buildings on college campuses have been largely negative. Unfortunately, too many campuses of state-university systems that were built or rapidly enlarged in the 1960s have not stood the test of time, nor have well-designed buildings that nevertheless are out of place in historic settings.

As the article points out, Franklin & Marshall has its own buildings that fall short of any architectural ideal, principally residence halls erected in the 1950s and 1960s. Minoru Yamasaki's Steinman College Center, while elegantly designed, is nonetheless poorly sited in the midst of one of Charles Z. Klauder's open or three-sided quadrangles. Moreover, its pale red brick stands out from the deeper hue not only of the campus but of Lancaster City's architectural fabric. The college's Roschel Theater, designed by Kliment Halsband Architects, is an important recent addition to the campus that successfully blends Yamasaki's restrained Modernism with a pair of Klauder buildings, one of which was renovated to support the performing arts.

In 2003, F&M created a 23-acre National Register Campus Historic District that embraces the three Gothic Revival buildings erected in the 1850s as well as 14 others that fall within the 50-year National Register time frame. The new Barshinger Life Sciences and Philosophy Building and the residence house designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, north of the historic district, do indeed reference the college's, and the city's, building traditions, our collective architectural heritage. They respect Klauder's designs: Admittedly they incorporate elements of those older buildings, but do not slavishly copy Klauder's work. Indeed, they are as modern as the limestone-clad Beaux-Arts campus William Welles Bosworth designed for MIT in 1913. As was true of Bosworth's MIT campus, which has been renovated several times, the new buildings at F&M will not only meet today's needs but will evolve to address new circumstances in the decades to come, just as Klauder's Fackenthal Laboratories was renovated this year to serve different academic departments and state-of-the-art educational technologies.

Over recent decades F&M has acquired land to the north, across Harrisburg Avenue from what had long been a landlocked campus of 53 acres. There will be space on the north campus for Modernist buildings that exemplify new directions in architecture and complement the historic campus. I look forward to that day.

David Schuyler
Professor of American Studies
Franklin & Marshall College
Lancaster, Pa.