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[tee_bee]

Over on the "Overheard on Campus" thread, I made a comment that sort of derailed the discussion. But this makes me think of a fun question:

What urban legends do you have about campus design and architecture?

These are more fun the more they are believed to be true. They are almost always, of course, bogus. Here's three of my favorites:

* Padelford Hall at the U of Washington was designed to be so labyrinthine so as to prevent students from seizing the building.

* The SUNY Albany main campus was designed to be built in Saudi Arabia/India, but the builder didn't take the plans, so the university just bought them off the shelf from the architect and plopped a suited-for-the-tropics design into sub-arctic Albany (the same legend was told of my H.S. in Alaska).

* The library at UMass was built without taking into account the dead load of all the books on the shelves, which means that the library must strictly control assess so as not to admit too many people into the building, because the load on the floors makes little bits of concrete shoot out like projectiles.

Any more fun legends about campus architecture? Let's start our very own collection!

[macaroon]

* The library at UMass was built without taking into account the dead load of all the books on the shelves, which means that the library must strictly control assess so as not to admit too many people into the building, because the load on the floors makes little bits of concrete shoot out like projectiles.

Ooh!  I heard this exact legend about Robarts Library at the University of Toronto.... which, if viewed from the right angle, is shaped like a turkey. 

[conjugate]

The undergraduate library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is entirely underground.  The reason is that it is next to some agricultural plots that would get very little sunlight if the building were built above ground.  Rather than have the corn plots (reputed to be the oldest experimental agricultural plots in the country) ruined, the library was built down instead of up.  Above ground are only a couple of small buildings that lead to stairs or elevators to get you down into the rest of the place. 

I couldn't find a good picture of this on the web, unfortunately.

[mended_drum]

Every school I've been at has the library rumor.  It sounds more plausible in New Orleans, though.

Also, there's the get-all-As-if-my-roommate-commits-suicide story.

And there's the "women can't live in sorority houses here because more than three women living together is a brothel in X city" (note:  fraternities, in general, own significantly more real estate than sororities).

I've heard the labyrinth tale at SUNY-Buffalo and Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Oh, and those buildings with long narrow windows which make them look like an old fashioned punch card are always supposed to say something obnoxious about a school rival.

[notaprof]

"The dorms were designed by architects who were most experienced in designing prisons and that is why the shower heads are so low, so no one can hang themselves on them."

My old school had this as a rumor but I have heard it elsewhere too so I won't attribute it to just one place.

[duchess_of_malfi]

"The building housing the registrar and bursar offices was designed to resemble a computer punch card."  (On this campus, it was supposed to represent the impersonality of the system rather than spelling out a message.)

I've heard the library rumor about several places (but not my alma mater where a wing of the library sank and had to be repaired but not in association with a rumor about the weight of books), and the unrelated-women-in-house rumor about every college town.  

[toxoplasma]

Heard the labyrinthine one at the last two universities I've worked. Weird! Those rioting students, who can't even manage to read the syllabus!

[tee_bee]

These are all priceless! Keep 'em coming!!

[concordancia]

As I mentioned on the other thread, my understanding is that the labyrinth rumors are silly because they go against theories of uses of architecture to control space - ie, it is easier for the mob to take control of the labyrinth than the authorities. Can we get someone with more relevant education to comment on this?

[duchess_of_malfi]

There was a semi-panic, with some people really believing it, when I was in college about a serial killer who had supposedly killed every X years in a large women's dorm on a campus on a certain day...[some details I forget that were supposed to lead to the conclusion that this year was our turn].  This must have gone around--did anyone else hear it?

[toxoplasma]

As I mentioned on the other thread, my understanding is that the labyrinth rumors are silly because they go against theories of uses of architecture to control space - ie, it is easier for the mob to take control of the labyrinth than the authorities. Can we get someone with more relevant education to comment on this?

as in, anti-panopticon? bizarro-panopticon?

[tee_bee]

As I mentioned on the other thread, my understanding is that the labyrinth rumors are silly because they go against theories of uses of architecture to control space - ie, it is easier for the mob to take control of the labyrinth than the authorities. Can we get someone with more relevant education to comment on this?

I'm not an architect, but the logic behind the story at UW was that it would be easier to contain a smaller group/mob in a small space than to control a larger group in a less confusing space. These rumors are generated by students, so their logic is not often sound.

[concordancia]

As I mentioned on the other thread, my understanding is that the labyrinth rumors are silly because they go against theories of uses of architecture to control space - ie, it is easier for the mob to take control of the labyrinth than the authorities. Can we get someone with more relevant education to comment on this?

as in, anti-panopticon? bizarro-panopticon?

I admit, most of my knowledge of architecture comes from Foucault and literature, hence my willingness to defer to someone of greater authority.

[notaprof]

As I mentioned on the other thread, my understanding is that the labyrinth rumors are silly because they go against theories of uses of architecture to control space - ie, it is easier for the mob to take control of the labyrinth than the authorities. Can we get someone with more relevant education to comment on this?

I'm not an architect, but the logic behind the story at UW was that it would be easier to contain a smaller group/mob in a small space than to control a larger group in a less confusing space. These rumors are generated by students, so their logic is not often sound.

Speaking of riot control, a recent speaker claimed that interstate freeway system was built through concentrated population centers with raised roads so that in the event of an uprising, the military could control the chaos by taking over the roads and shooting down into the crowds below.  In fact, the announcement of the plan that resulted our freeway system referred to it as the National Defense Highway System.

[duchess_of_malfi]

Speaking of riot control, a recent speaker claimed that interstate freeway system was built through concentrated population centers with raised roads so that in the event of an uprising, the military could control the chaos by taking over the roads and shooting down into the crowds below.  In fact, the announcement of the plan that resulted our freeway system referred to it as the National Defense Highway System.

Official information about the 1956 act of Congress authorizing the building of the interstate highway system emphasizes the ability to move people and supplies across the country quickly, but it's interesting that there is a rumor about domestic riots or uprisings connected with it.  I hadn't hear that before.