Marc Mayerson, assistant dean of social sciences at University of California at Los Angeles, is the Buildings & Grounds guest blogger for July. He has spent 30 years in and around college campuses, as an undergraduate, a cook, special-collections library assistant, hospital biller, typist, clerk, bookbinder, accountant, analyst, financial programmer, and graduate student.
Marc Mayerson
Look north from the first floor of Ralph Bunche Hall at the University of California at Los Angeles and you’ll see the famed sculpture garden—a hilly, five-acre oasis of grass, benches, and sun-dappled sidewalks that meander among masterpieces from renowned sculptors. Pieces by Rodin, Matisse, Moore, Arp and Zuniga all rest beneath a canopy of jacaranda trees, now in breathtaking lavender bloom.
The southern view from Bunche Hall used to overlook tree-shaded brick patios, the steps leading to the iconic building, and a sloping lawn with shade trees and flower-filled planters. Until last year, that is. Today, part of the view is blocked by a 12-foot-by-7-foot bank of vending machines encased in a block bunker. Where once a visitor emerging from the elevators looked out on green grass and purple agapanthus beds, one now see a gaudy blotch of bright plastic and neon, Nescafe and Pepsi logos, glassed-in racks of gum, candy, burritos and Cheetos, ice cream, yogurt, and apples. When it’s bright, you can even take in the thick black electric cables snaking beneath the machines.
In the vending trade, these structures are known as pavilions. While I associate pavilions more with worlds fairs and sports arenas, one can forgive the vending industry its euphemisms; after all, I doubt whether even the most hardened sales rep would tout “modern, efficient view-blocking capabilities” in a sales pitch. But I prefer the term bank, as in a bank of vending machines, since there is money to be made from them—lots of it. Because this is a lamentation, I will spare you an accounting of just how much and who gets it.
God knows public universities are hurting for money, and this was not the first of what must be dozens of vending banks to grace the UCLA campus. In fact, there are larger banks of vending machines 100 steps to the west and 250 steps to the east. What makes this bank unique is its placement. While other banks are ensconced in vending rooms or against outside walls, this one was placed upon—and blocked—a prime sightline. I think it’s safe to say that Bunche Hall’s eminent architect, the late Maynard Lyndon, would not have tolerated such an encroachment. Not only does it block the view out, it blocks a proportional view of the front. It doesn’t belong there.
That’s not to say it went up without a fight. A couple of weeks before its installation, several Bunche Hall denizens caught wind of the plan and raised quite a fuss. Led by one particularly outraged professor, a committee of protestors demanded an end to such aesthetic insults and ended up around a table with a few campus nabobs, including the dean. The protestors’ pique was a rich and righteous melange of art, Marxism, eco-terrorism, and Joni Mitchell. But in the end, too busy with teaching and research, no one chained himself or herself to the power pole that signaled the beginning of construction. Within three days the pavilion was finished and open for business. I’m told it does well.
And so there it sits. To entering students it appears always to have been there, like Bunche Hall itself. No doubt they’ll buy their lunch or a late-night coffee from one of the plastic sliding windows, unawares. Alas, young scholar, it was not always so! You used to able to see the green grass from there. You used to have to walk a minute longer to get a Pepsi. —Marc Mayerson
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