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[Forums Moderator]

Celebrity architects can be very demanding, and so can their buildings, which are often overbudget, hard to maintain, and difficult to adapt to changing needs. Arthur J. Lidsky, a campus and facility planner, says that few colleges have the expertise and fortitude to work with star architects, and that long after the fleeting publicity from such projects is over, the headaches remain. Do buildings like Frank Gehry's Peter B. Lewis Building at Case Western Reserve University or Steven Holl's Simmons Hall at MIT enhance or detract from their campuses' missions and milieus? Read more...

[Cheryl]

Thanks to the AAUP, the faculty didn't get a raise during the last two years. These people are so incompetent, we probably won't get a raise for the next two years either.

The state says "we don't have the money for faculty raises". And of course the stupid AAUP says "okay".

When they pay me what they owe me, and restore the salary I've lost due to inflation, then---and only then---should they be forking over money for architects.

[Patricia Schwarz]

I appreciate your feelings about faculty pay.

However, I'm going to disappoint you now by engaging in a disgusting display of building worship. I have a huge giant flaming crush on the new Broad Center at Caltech. I'm so in love with that building, I could send it chocolates on Valentine's Day. I photograph it more than I photograph my own husband.

I've never seen a building that better expresses the mission of Caltech to explore the universe, past, present and future.

So whatever David Baltimore did to get that building built, it was worth it, as far as I'm concerned.

[%sig%]

[Janet]

Ask Harvard Law School about their Walter Gropius-designed Harkness Commons!  It is really not adequate for current requirements and is in many ways out of date, but it can't be replaced and in fact can't be extensively altered - it's landmarked, because Gropius was - well, Gropius.

[Cheryl]

Then whip out your checkbook and YOU pay for it.

I work at a public university, which means taxpayer dollars pay my salary. Those taxpayer dollars also pay for those architects.
Get it?

[Mike]

The public vs. private issue regarding funding in higher education is increasingly muddy. In many public universities, particularly research universites, the percentage of revenues consisting of state tax dollars has been decreasing for some time and represents only a fraction of the institution's operating budget. Conversely, many research-oriented private universities are heavily dependent on federal research grants, which of course are tax dollars. So, with all due respect to Cheryl, this is a tangential issue at best.

In fact, as many development folks could tell you, "star" architecture can bring in funds and students. Are most universities equipped to handle these projects? I have no clue.

[%sig%]

[David]

A lot of these landmark buildings do seem to flaunt style over function and have lots of useless empty space in them and cost a lot of money. I think there is a place for one on a campus as a centerpiece if donors are providing the money. But you want mostly good quality functional buildings where art statements are secondary. It is strange really that architecture is treated so much as "art" rather than "design". Most other art in the modern world are non-functional things where art is the whole point. Imagine cars designed by star architects :)

[Architectophile]

Since we have to have buildings, and we should build them to last, let's make them as beautiful or interesting to look at as possible. Short-sighted concerns about cost be damned -- if a school can find a way to get the money for a fabulous building, they owe it to future generations to do so. Stunning archeticture inspires, nourishing the mind and soul.  In fact, many of the buildings on our campus are far more inspiring than some of the professors. We have all seen ugly, dumpy, "utilitarian" campuses. Who wants to attend them? And, for that matter, who does attend them? Only those with no other choice. A Gehry building will inspire generations to come. Can the same be said for your lectures, Cheryl? Use some perspective.

[Architecture and Fads]

The use of these star architects seems to me to be misguided if you want the campus to be "prettied up."  I'd bet money that many of the styles of these "star" architects will look outdated in a few years and thus make the campus look outdated and boring (defeating the purpose of hiring the architect in the first place).  The whole point of getting a star architect seems to be a way to either get publicitly and/or to superficially cover up the real problems that may be going on at a university.

Why can't we just have the simple brick building design that is usually associated with colleges? (As seen in numerous movies and television shows).  The utilitarian campuses that people complain about were built in the 1960's and 1970's during the era of urban renewal.  However, the stereotypical brick college campuses that were built earlier seem to be doing ok. I've yet to here someone complain that campuses such as these look drab or boring.

[Architectophile]

It's not about "prettying up" it's about inspiration and asthetics (asthetics does not = pretty, doh). Yes, all buildings eventually look dated -- but that is the point. They speak about the times in which they were created.  We cannot have a world of just classical collegiate brick buildings, nor gothic stone buildins as some of the really old campus consist. Students need to be exposed to a variety of styles and periods. Your response bespeaks soullessness.  Thank heavens for imaginative and forward-thinking people, or we'd still be living in caves -- hey, they were good enough for our forefathers!

[Dale]

I'm certainly not a regressive person, but I fail to see the utility in making buildings that don't use space well.  I think there must be a happy medium between elegant an aesthetically pleasing buildings and those that look like dull boxes.  

Architectophile - you are aptly named, and by calling others soulless, you simplify a problem of campus architecture that cannot be reduced to "If it looks good, do it."

[Cheryl]

I beg to differ but it is most definitely NOT tangential to the issue. It has to do with a proper sense of priorities.

It is the faculty that makes up the foundation---and therefore, the reputation---of the university. Buildings do not make the university.  Indeed, my university is losing faculty hand over fist. These people are not leaving academia altogether; they are leaving for other universities that pay a better salary.

Taxpayer dollars are scarce.  (And it doesn't matter if its research grant money for private universities or tuition for public universities either---its still taxpayer money.) If universities want to spend scarce resources on buildings rather than faculty salaries then so be it.  

Quality faculty or pretty buildings.  Which do you favor spending taxpayer dollars on Mike?

[Architectophile]

I think architecturally brilliant buildings on university campus's that do not make efficient use of space are rare, but you are using those exceptions to define the issue. And if a university has the luxury of being able to erect a building that doesn't make efficient use of space but is sculptural and inspiring, good for them. Efficiency and utilitarianism are not end-alls and be-alls. If it were, art would stagnate.

Buildings by star architects help attract star professors who attract star students. Each university has to define its own goals and its place in the academic world. Not every university can be world class -- there is a place for the pedestrain.

Dale wrote:

> I'm certainly not a regressive person, but I fail to see the
> utility in making buildings that don't use space well.  I think
> there must be a happy medium between elegant an aesthetically
> pleasing buildings and those that look like dull boxes.  
>
> Architectophile - you are aptly named, and by calling others
> soulless, you simplify a problem of campus architecture that
> cannot be reduced to "If it looks good, do it."

[Mike]

"Quality faculty or pretty buildings. Which do you favor spending taxpayer dollars on Mike?"


Well, actually, both. I still maintain that your points are tangential to the issues brought up in this discussion. I just read the article (again) on which this discussion supposedly is based. The author clearly recognizes that many institutions cannot afford star architects and perhaps yours is one of them. By the way, since you posed the dichotomy above, has your institution chosen to spend money on pretty buildings at the expense of quality faculty? If so, it seems to me that you have a legitimate, albeit local, complaint.

The focus of the article was on whether or not most schools have the ability to manage these architects and their projects in order to avoid being stuck with poorly functioning buildings and/or major cost overruns. Grousing about your poor pay doesn't address that issue. I don't have an informed opinion on that issue, but since my own institution has been spending lots of money on cool buildings for awhile (while also increasing tenure track faculty positions and faculty compensation) I would be interested in hearing from those who do.

[MIT student]

>>Quality faculty or pretty buildings.

MIT has quality faculty, but I don't know if you've seen the MIT buildings talked about in the article.  They are NOT pretty.  Simmons almost won the ugliness contest on campus the year after it went up (it got beaten out by world hunger or something similar).  Some people like the stata center... it looks like a building out of "Oh the Places you'll go" by Dr. Seuss.

They're also extremely user unfriendly.  There is no privacy in the stata center-- everything is open so that the regular tours can see exactly what's going on in each lab.  

Simmons has all sorts of weird bulges inside and students are not allowed to move their furniture.  Each ceiling tile is hand-made and costs over $1K to replace.  Undergraduates really wish that MIT had decided to build an undergraduate version of Sidney and Pacific, a beautiful graduate dorm started at the same time as Simmons, with a larger capacity that is incredibly user friendly, went up on time and on budget but was designed by a practical rather than theoretical architect.