Sun 5 Jul 2009
The Boston Globe published a ludicrous article today about William Rawn, the architect behind the ‘62 Center for Theatre and Dance, aka Donald Trump’s Neon Pompadour (emphases added):
Bill Rawn talks down to you as an equal. Almost 6 feet 8, he glides through a room like an elegant giraffe. You learn when you engage him that he is a listener, not a talker. He absorbs far more than he emits.
It is this listening skill, along with great talent, that has helped make him a stunning success as an architect.
“Listening is a problem for architects,” Rawn says. “In architecture school, we do our own projects. There is no client, no budget. You’re doing it all by yourself. You find your own voice, which is good, but you don’t learn to listen to other people.”
Unlike architects with defiant signature styles, he does not design Statements.
“He is modern and contemporary, but not Frank Gehry off-the-wall,” says Winthrop Wassenar, former director of facilities at Williams College and project manager for Rawn’s ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance which opened in Williamstown in 2005.[...]
No one quite knows how to describe Rawn the architect. You hear the words “elegant” and “understated” a lot. Some call him conservative, but compared to what? He is no hidebound proponent of red brick. He prefers the word “contemporary,” and that sounds right.[...]
Today, Rawn is the go-to architect by elite colleges and universities for performance centers and dormitories. What he is most proud of are his repeat clients, such as Dartmouth, Williams, Swarthmore, and MIT.
His buildings are easy on the eye, and they wear well. He incorporates natural light whenever he can with extensive use of glass. Many of his buildings are LEED certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for environmental sustainability. In renovating an ancient swimming pool building at Bowdoin into a recital hall, he used a geothermal system to heat and cool the place.[...]
[H]e garnered high praise for his theater at Williams [Ed: from whom?] and for The Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Md. the second home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra that opened in 2005. But his range extends to a horticultural center at Mount Auburn Cemetery, a synagogue in Wellesley, a federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a luminous little fire station in Columbus, Ind.
What do they have in common? Rawn is a design democrat with a small “d’’ who likes to put people from all walks of life close together, “rubbing shoulders,’’ as he puts it. Things can get tight, as in the Williams theater lobby, which is fine with him. He believes in density.[...]
And now, a retrospective of Dick Swart’s interpretation of the theatre Rawn designed:
| « Editing and Deleting | Calling Moonwalk and others » |
84 Responses to “Understated?!”
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sophmom says:
Ahhhhh, a Swart retrospective. The beginnings of the talent that was soon to grace the pages of EB on a blessedly regular basis, and which I hope will soon be the case again now that he has returned from “Swart and Turgidley’s Excellent Adventures”.
LOL, Ronit, thanks for the much-needed chuckle.
nuts says:
Lede Most Calculated to Leave You Scratching Your Head.
a)”Bill Rawn talks down to you as an equal.”
b) “I’ve always considered Leap Year Day akin to the extra screw you put in your sock drawer after misassembling a table. link”
c) All of the above.
lgeorge says:
“Today, Rawn is the go-to architect by elite colleges and universities for performance centers and dormitories. What he is most proud of are his repeat clients, such as Dartmouth, Williams, Swarthmore, and MIT.”
I never thought I’d say this, but thank G-d we are out of money.
Guy Creese '75 says:
OK, ha, ha, chuckle, chuckle, because Dick Swart can use Photoshop.
But Bill Rawn IS a good architect. He’s avoided the ego thing–the downfall of people like Pei and Johnson–and actually designs buildings that work. If I remember correctly, he also still has his Equity card, so he knows the peculiar requirements of the theatre. I’ve heard nothing but praise of the building from people at Williams, who feel it’s a building that (1) does its job, (2) looks good [I agree], and (3) is exciting to be in [I agree, having attended several plays there].
JeffZ says:
I agree with all three points Guy, but I still don’t view the building as a total aesthetic success. The interior is fantastic, and the exterior, removed from context, is attractive, but it just feels so out of place in that stretch of campus, so overwhelms everything else with its massive scale and complete inattention to its environment, that I feel despite it being an attractive building standing alone, it detracts from that initial drive into the Williams campus from Route 2. Maybe over time it will feel less out of place, but I still find it jarring (in ways I don’t find Paresky jarring, because that doesn’t overwhelm its surroundings in the same way, despite being modern, and will work particularly well once the library is torn down I believe).
I think people also associate the building with the enormously frustrating parking garage which killed 2/3 of Greylock swamp, yet usually sits totally empty much of the year — what a waste (I mean, at least let students use it the 95 percent of the time shows aren’t happening). I know there are supposedly all sorts of legal requirements for parking volume on campus with new construction, but I was on the Amherst campus recently, and there seemed like barely any parking lots anywhere near the center of campus — not sure why Amherst can get away with that, but Williams can not. In general, Williams seems to have to put so much hardscape / paving / parking around new buildings (like Paresky) in ways that I just don’t see on other campuses, yet I always here these are legal requirements. I don’t get it. I just hope once the new central campus quad is finally built, Williams does every thing possible to make every inch of it as green as possible, because that will be, along with Baxter lawn, the center / great lawn of campus. But I digress.
Back on point, I will say I think Ephblog as a whole is a little overly harsh on the building, especially in light of its various spectacular interior spaces and functional success. Understated, however, it is not.
I do like a lot of his other buildings highlighted in the Rawn slide show (though I wouldn’t say I love every single one).
lgeorge says:
Guy, I think that the objections on this forum have been that 1) it stands out too much, rather than fitting well into its context (it is what I call a “Hey, look at me” building, down to its night lighting and neon signage); 2) it was designed much more for outside groups’ use than for Williams students’ use; and 3) it turns a very ugly side toward the Greylock residences.
lgeorge says:
And I should add that to that that there have been objections to the way the parking building associated with the new building is never available for student use, so students living in Greylock have to look at an ugly empty garage (that they can’t even use) in one direction and a long side of a building with exposed mechanicals and nothing to recommend it in the other direction, or when walking in their “neighborhood.” Rawn may not be responsible for the garage (and certainly isn’t responsible for policies on its use) but he is responsible for that terrible, unfriendly western side of the theater building. A student-oriented theater and dance building would have presented an appealing side to its nearest student neighbors and to the students waling around it, not just to the people driving on Rt. 2 (which students don’t do all that often).
lgeorge says:
And I echo Jeff’s sentiments about placing green areas near buildings as much as possible, and his puzzlement over being told that the hard surfaces are legal requirements (when other schools seem to get by without them). I wish someone would “call” the people who make the claim about the legal requirements on it. Is Williams just giving in to every random whim of town officials? Perhaps that is the genesis of the new “highwayed” sidewalks and patios.
I hope the new spaces will be greener and that someday someone will make the western side of the ‘62 Center much less of an eyesore to the students.
PTC says:
Hey!That is my picture that Swart used. I demand my share of the credit… and 1/3 of all revenue created when this rendition of my original post is used as a promotion tool for WTF.
hwc says:
I’m one of the few who really like Rawn’s work on the pair of new dorms at Swarthmore. I appreciate his use of diamond cut Swiss stone as an elegant variation on an all gray stone campus, a variation that fits nicely and adds a little different look. I also appreciate that he incorporated a courtyard into the interlocking design of the two buildings, with stone patios, grassy area, and gardens. These outdoor gathering places are a signature feature of Swarthmore’s campus and this will evolve into a nice one as the landscaping matures.
The students and alumni feel the buildings are too sterile and too cold and too modern. It’s a little early to tell how poplular they will become in the housing lotteries as we only now have the first generation of students who never knew the campus without them and who don’t refer to them as the New Dorm and the New New Dorm.
Link to Rawn’s photo page of Alice Paul Hall at Swarthmore
Photo of David Kemp Hall, the second building forming the third side of the garden courtyard.
Rawn probably got these elements right because they were simultaneously preparing a comprehensive campus land-use plan identifying key elements of the Swarthmore campus, including a huge open lawn the size of Thomas Jefferson’s original lawn at UVA.
Land Use Plan #1 (PDF)
Land Use Plan #2 (PDF)
Land Use Plan #3 (PDF)
Land Use Plan #4 (PDF)
Jay says:
Re: the Greylock parking garage:
1) @lgeorge at 7: I might be misunderstanding your comment, but unless the College’s site is wrong, Bill Rawn is “responsible” for the Greylock parking garage – http://www.williams.edu/admin/facilities/propertybook/arch_list.php.
2) The Greylock parking garage is a cloaking device for the College’s chiller plant. The College needed enormous and noisy new machines to handle the HVAC demands of its new (and planned) future construction. Those machines are hidden inside the parking garage. This was very much a “two birds with one stone” project, with the need for a chiller plant a primary concern, and the extra theatre parking a nice secondary bonus.
Anon 89er says:
What a silly, gushing article. Still it takes me back to 1988, taking a material culture (combined Art History/History seminar) with Bob Dalzell. One of our texts was House by Tracey Kidder, about Rawn’s first commission, the house of a friend in Amherst. Rawn was described in such glowing terms I could not figure out what could possibly be so special about him.
In any case, we read the book as a sociological case study, not as a study about serious, or even good, architecture. After 21 years and a this distinguished body of commissions completed (none of which seem particular engaging or noteworthy), it appears Rawn’s greatest talent is in cultivating obsequious press coverage.
Any art historians or architects out there to explain what is so wonderful about this body of work? I am quite ready to accept the possibility that I am a poorly educated philistine in these matters.
hwc says:
I suspect that the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Post all have readily available price guides so that people, firms, companies, and campaigns can purchase as much glowing coverage as their budgets and egos allow. The same sort of price guides they used to distribute to advertisers, back when they had those.
lgeorge says:
Alice Paul Hall (great name) at Swat might look good at Midd. (I haven’t seen it at Swat and so can’t comment on how it fits there.)
Jay – fascinating comments about the garage. I did not know that.
hwc says:
It’s the second try at naming a building after one of Swarthmore’s more famous graduates, Alice Paul. The Women’s Resource Center building was orginally named for Alice Paul, but Paul’s mixed record on including black women in her women’s suffrage movement created enough of a debate on campus that the name was changed.
This time an anonymous donor bought the naming rights, considered the results of a student poll, and chose the name Alice Paul Hall.
As far as context, every building at Swarthmore except one is some variation on gray stone:
Classic gray stone at the top of the lawn
Understated Penn. Quaker gray stone
Gothic like Thompson Chapel
Art Deco gray stone
Modern gray stone and green glass
Modern gray stone with ruins courtyard garden
Middle Earth Hobbit gray stone cottages
60’s style Mission Park modern in gray stone bricks
gray slate chalkboard walls
Ski Lodge style gray stone
Gray Stone version of a 60’s big box Sawyer Library
So, basically anything goes as long as it’s gray stone. They built a gray stucco dorm back the 80s recession and alumni raised money to go back and add gray stone a couple years later! I think Rawn Associates did a nice job with the sleek modern dorm clad in exquisite Swiss stone.
inquisitive says:
Slightly offtopic but a little-known Eph gets a profile in Bloomberg News – Gerry Pasciucco ‘82, head of closing up shop at AIG Financial Products.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=afDX3.N1Kdgw
JeffZ says:
That Pasciucco story has made the rounds ina few comment threads … just waiting for one of the finance savvy ephs to post as a primary post …
Guy Creese '75 says:
Possibly fair point on Rawn perhaps being good at soliciting fawning coverage. I don’t know–I haven’t viewed the range of articles on his work–but certainly being a PR machine is part of being a high-profile architect these days.
The problem with criticizing architecture is that it’s an inherently practical art–people actually live in it. Unlike painting, unlike sculpture, unlike music, etc. I’ve worked in buildings where (1) the 45 degree glass roof meant that the entrance needed to be closed during snow storms due to the danger of snow/ice crashing down on workers, (2) the entrance lobby had so many echoing surfaces (brick, glass) that you couldn’t hear anything and the receptionist spent the entire day screaming at people, and (3) the windows fell out (literally–I’m talking Pei’s Hancock Tower in Boston: 3 fell out in one day). Yet people raved about the buildings because they “looked good.”
A good building looks good, works, and generates a visceral reaction when you’re in it (soaring spaces, great vistas, etc.) So I don’t buy the fact that the building isn’t a good building because it doesn’t mimic the Georgian Revival buildings around it. Looks are only one thing to consider. If we’re talking looks, the old AMT took the route of “let’s not offend anyone,” and while it didn’t make any enemies, it also just sat there like a lump.
Buildings are like people at a party–some are more outgoing than others. Ultimately, you want a lively conversation–you don’t want everyone sitting there silently, and you also don’t want everyone trying to be the life of the party. Given the fact that the theatre is on Route 2, and you need to “read” it as you quickly go past–”Look dear, there’s the theatre, let’s look for parking,” I don’t mind it being on the more “look at me” side. However, if you sited it at Mission Park and it had the same level of loudness, that would serve no purpose and just be ostentatious.
lgeorge says:
Re: 18 – It did not need the very high degree of “Hey, look at me” that it has (both in terms of design and lighting). Williamstown is not a huge and confusing place to navigate, signs are permitted, the building is very centrally and conveniently located for anyone arriving by car or bus, and the speed limit on Rt. 2 is slow enough and the buildings spaced far enough apart that one doesn’t need 65-MPH-strength visual clues to find the theater building. That building is just over the top for its setting. Subtle strength, blending more into the context but also standing out by way of the strength of its design, would have been much more appealing to me (and no need for Georgian, I agree).
As to the cocktail party, I may not be in the majority, but I’ve never liked parties where one person constantly screamed for attention. It sucks too much air out of the room and is irritating.
Even more troubling here to me are the western wall and its relationship to the nearest student-oriented buildings, and the way this building was not really built for the student theater so much as it was built for non-student-oriented uses, such as the summer festival. Sadly, the design communicates that, loud and clear, too.
As I have said before, though, I’d be much less upset about this building if someone would do something to fix the depressing, dead face that its western wall presents to students walking by, as many do in their daily routines.
hwc says:
I actually like the Williams theater building a lot, especially the inside. To me, the whole problem is the siting. If that building were at the Mission site with a hillside and some trees, the drama of the Donald Trump entrance may work. As it sits, it’s just so needlessly showy. What is essentially a moderate size foyer/entrance is made showy for nothing but showy sake. There is absolutely no reason for the Donald Trump hairpiece to be four stories high. In fact, it detracts from the scale of the inside space and certainly detracts from the outside in that setting.
lgeorge makes a good point. For all the talk of demolishing a perfectly good library to create new green space, the combination of the theater and parking garage wiped out one of the most used green spaces on the entire campus and detracts from the Greylock Quad, that time has shown, IMO, to be Williams most successful architecture from the modern era.
rory says:
whoa…slow down hwc,
the green space that the parking lot decimated was rarely used while I was at williams (just before the theater was built) and greylock was commonly seen as an unappealing eyesore with bizarre waffle ceilings and a weird common area set-up that only occasionally worked.
its a fine set of dorm, i guess, but i wouldn’t call it a very successful piece of architecture. and i certainly wouldn’t call the theater + parking garage green space “one of the most used green spaces”. The fields behind Poker Flats, the area in front of Baxter/Paresky, and–before the yonic eyes sculptures were added, the area next to Goodrich–were all much, MUCH more used.
even within greylock, that area–while now significantly less attractive and a shame that it’s a parking garage that’s rarely useful to students–was the least used behind the weird valley that is next to it and the actual greylock quad area itself.
Ronit says:
The Greylock parking garage was the first building I ever saw at Williams, and it seemed pretty cool when I saw it. I still think it’s the most attractive parking garage I’ve seen. I suspect there would be much less hostility to it if the administration allowed student parking there.
Ronit says:
@rory: Actually, I think hwc is correct if you compare the Greylock dorms to the other 70s-era modern buildings on campus. They are, in my opinion, the most attractive and functional of the lot. I may be biased because I spent two years living there. The rooms and passageways are a decent size, the large windows let in plenty of light, the common rooms and suites allow for a certain degree of privacy while still being open walk-through spaces, and the surrounding greenery lends a nice touch. Unlike Mission, Greylock seems like it was designed for people to live in.
The Yonic lawn got a ton of use while Grab ‘n Go was located in Goodrich (due to Baxter being torn down). Not so sure about now.
JeffZ says:
I do think, as parking garages go, the Greylock garage is about as attractive as you could ask for (and I think it will look better as the landscaping planted around it continued to grow), and to the extent there needs to be parking on campus, better to have three levels rather than just space-killing asphalt (especially considering, as noted above, that this also serves to conceal a massive HVAC …). But as well all agree, having a huge parking lot, that does take away some (though hardly all — there is still a lot of green around Greylock) of the area green space sit virtually unusued when students could really use the parking is ridiculous. I hope this is one issue the new President will quickly work to resolve …
JeffZ says:
PS Here are images and info on garage for those who are unfamiliar:
http://www.walkerparking.com/portfolio/index.php?category=Educational&project=31
lgeorge says:
Thanks for the pictures of the garage/theater chiller plant, Jeff. I don’t remember using the field where the garage is much, but I rue marring the viewscape (one of the sweetest views on campus) with an underused garage apparently mostly put up for the summer theater and to house/hide air conditioning for the summer theater. Perhaps Williams could borrow the Stone Hill cows and graze them around the field, to enhance the formerly buccolic view. :-)
I wish I could find picures of the western wall of the theater building. I complain about it so much that I should take pictures, to have on hand for my next complaintfest, the next time I am in town. Now, a changing student art wall or changing student communication wall could be really something there — or sculptures to rival the Eyes. Some sort of combination sculpture/hang out space? Calling on Andy Goldsworthy? http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/goldsworthy_andy.html
rory says:
ronit–
you may be right about 70s era architecture…i didn’t know “modern era” was a 1970s style.
And, if so, it’s like saying Greylock is best of the worst, imo. congrats to Greylock.
hwc says:
What do I know? I only lived in a house overlooking the entire Greylock Quad for a year. The parking lot along the eastern fence was filled with student cars and heavily used. The whole area behind Greylock was a big frisbee field — the largest open space on campus.
That area has been transformed into an urban landscape with the access road to the back of the theater, the parking garage, and the theater itself. My wife took a photo from our old back yard after the theater was built and the tranformation from a bucolic trees and green is pretty dramatic.
My comments about the Greylock Quad are limited to the exterior appearance. In my opinion, the Quad is more attractive, blending with the site and the overall scale of the campus better than any other building at Williams built since WWII. Certainly better than Mission Park. Certainly better than Sawyer Library. Certainly better than the music building addition to Chapin. I think the key was successfully combining the red brick into the design in an effective way.
JeffZ says:
I think Mission is very well suited to its site, actually, and now that the interior has been redone, it functions far better than Greylock on the interior as well. But I do agree that Greylock is attractive enough on the exterior — if only
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that the Greylock quad looks less attractive now than it did before. But other than ultimate fribee practice, I didn’t really see that green space used much at all when I lived there (the quad itself was heavily used, but that remains), and now ultimate I believe just practices down in the Cole area (or so I assume). My view is that, if there has to be parking and HVAC equipment and the like, far better to push them to the outskirts of campus, as was done here (BUT, if you are going to do so, for the love of god, make sure the parking is actually accessible to students — otherwise there is no point). I’d rather see larger, open green spaced towards the center of campus — the science quad, Baxter lawn, and soon, the green where Sawyer now stands — where the open space is likely to be used and appreciated far more often, and operates as a central campus space. If only the parking lot next to Baxter lawn could be killed (or I guess Paresky lawn now) but of course that is needed by the church it serves …. (although since part of that parking lot was used by Sawyer, I wonder if it can at least be reduced in size?).
JeffZ says:
Above, meant to add to if only: there was some way to get rid of the claustrophobia-inducing waffle ceilings — but alas they seem integral to the structure of the buildings.
Ronit says:
The Rawn-designed Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood gets a fair amount of mention in the original Globe article linked above. I’ve seen a few concerts there. It’s a pretty concert hall, and well designed insofar as it allows people sitting on the lawn outside to listen to concerts. Nothing particularly earthshaking. The interior is a copy of hundreds of similar halls – think Chapin Hall with open sides and better acoustics. It has an antiquated feel to it, right down to the hard uncomfortable pew-like benches in the balconies. Here’s an obligatory fawning Globe article about it.
rory says:
in my four years, the bulk of frisbee practice happened behind Poker Flats.
i didn’t challenge your belief or that it came from some sort of actual knowledge, hwc, but I did have a (relatively) unique knowledge of that area right before the construction of the parking garage as that happened one or two years immediately after i left campus. And just before the parking garage was built, the area was not that commonly used. Perhaps because you oversaw it every day, you might have over-appreciated its vibrancy compared to the other parts of campus that you didn’t see everyday in the same light. maybe i never walked through at 5:30 pm when it was bustling with student activity. who knows…but from my experience as a student, it was not a particularly bustling area. in fact, it was quite dead a lot of the time.
I’d also say that in terms of architecture, the science quad additions are far superior to greylock. Worlds better, in fact.
hwc says:
Mission Park’s big flaw aesthetically is that its Soviet-era gray concrete is just so jarringly out of place with the rest of the campus. A different exterior finish treatment and perhaps dividing it into two or even four visually separate buildings would have gone a long way to improving the fit.
I do agree that the building fits the site well, at least from up the hill. It’s still out of place from the backside.
I agree that the approach used for the Science Center expansion works well. That’s really the plan for the new library, too. Use existing old buildings as “false fronts” for large contemporary buildings.
JeffZ says:
I don’t think it’s out of place because, unlike a Swarthmore (as you highlighted), Amherst or Middlebury, the Williams campus is characterized by the very lack of any coherent architectural theme — it truly is a hodgepodge (compare Mission to Paresky to the Studio Art building to Lasell / Morgan to West / East to Stetson to Hopkins to Thompson Chapel and so on, they are all pretty dramatically different in style and materials), which some probably find jarring, and some interesting … I think the grey concrete works because it blends well into its surroundings, and allows the eye to focus on the mountains in the background and Mission Park in the foreground as you are walking down the hill towards Mission (I guess less so from the rear, but for a rear of a building, I think it still works fine). And despite the large amount of concrete, the combination of placement, the angled design, and the ample use of glass still makes the building feel fairly light and inobstrusive despite its fairly massive dimensions.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/crazyideas21/RtgS6aIgWhI/AAAAAAAAC7w/Q9eo4QEyqZg/s800/DSC_0066.JPG
(I will confess I didn’t love Mission at first — partially because the interior was still pretty hideous pre-renovation when I lived there — but it has really grown on me).
frank uible says:
We sure like to repeat ourselves on this Blog.
JG says:
I have to say that I actually really like(d) Mission, even pre-renovation. It took a bit of getting used to, but all those singles w/ big windows were nice…the multitude of fire/riot doors were the annnoying part. I love the view from the top of the hill through the Park and over to the field and Cole Field House, and I think it fits nicely in the space. A 1970s brick/concrete monstrosity like Prospect would seem out of place there, particularly with all the little white houses of the Dodd Quad within view. Perhaps I associate it with a good year or something, but the rooms always felt bright and cozy to me. Interior matters as much as the exterior, and the positives outweigh the negatives on both accounts.
I never liked Greylock as livable dorms. The waffle ceilings were a disaster, the interior brick/concrete was scratchy and meant every room kind of felt cold (and it was difficult to decorate/personalize). Also, when there was any moisture and/or heat, it gave off that terrible smell (like Bronfman does). Now the Greylock buildings and Bronfman both have a lot of space and some decent layouts, but to me they have never been enjoyable buildings the way that the new Science building or even old Baxter were (w/ the ugly pinkish carpet and 70s furniture). The Quad itself in Greylock is well-designed, and I don’t know that the new parking garage detracts from it all *that* much as it’s on the back side. Like Rory, I never really saw that lawn used for much of anything. Baxter Lawn, Chapin Beach, the Odd Quad, the lawn by Goodrich, and the field behind Poker were constantly busy during my era though. The central part of the quad in Greylock was used sometimes to toss a ball around or whatever, but not the back lawn/parking structure part.
Other than the Donald Trump overhang, the rest of the new theater building seems fine to me….but that overhang. I am pleased to hear that the interior is so functional/useful/well-liked though.
hwc says:
Here’s a better photo of Mission.
There’s a reason that all the good photos of Mission Park are taken from this one spot. It’s the angle that masks the mass of the building and minimizes the Soviet-era concrete cell block motif.
As 60’s era college dorm architecture goes, I think Mission has aged well, especially considering its huge 300 bed size. It could have been so much more with a nicer exterior treatment.
BTW, at the time Mission was built, red brick was the dominant motif at Williams. Yes there were a few exceptions like Morgan and the old gym, but the frosh quad, Chapin, Stetson, Baxter, Greylock, West, the Science Quad and almost all of the frat houses were red brick. Mission was a conscious decision break that as a unifying theme. I think that was probably a mistake.
lgeorge says:
I also like it in that picture, hcw. And with the interior renovations, it is wonderful inside — by far the best housing for a high percentage of first-year students that I have seen anywhere. (Some colleges may have a scattering of housing that arguably is better, but I’ve not found any that serves this large a percentage of first-years. And to have companionship all around, but the choice of single for the first year of college….bliss.)
I have always liked it that there was no dominant style at Williams and that, with outliers like Morgan, Goodrich, Thompson, the Congo (not Williams property, but central to the campus), Hopkins, the President’s House, some of the row houses, the gyms, the old observatory, Jessup, and even the music building, the red brick is not overwhelming. Some people like coherent, orderly campuses that are built all of one set of materials, but it’s never appealed to me and, in act, always feels unnatural and claustrophobic to me..
1980 says:
The space behind Greylock that hwc refers to was well-used during my 4 years at Williams – by frisbee but also by other student groups.
Whitney Wilson '90 says:
I’m a little biased (perhaps we all are on these issues, in one way or another) but I really liked Greylock (I lived in Bryant House for 3 years). Everyone got a single (some of which were quite large), the common rooms were decent sized, there weren’t any massive party rooms which would get trashed at all-campus events, and it was convenient to the Science Quad and Baxter. The waffle ceilings never really phased me, and the large window ledges were useful for keeping things (beer) cold in the winter time.
The field got heavy use from WUFO and WWUFO, and it was a fun place for pickup football games, etc. I really liked being able to park a car in the Greylock lot. Why is now barred for student use?
Whitney Wilson '90 says:
…oops, make that “fazed me” instead of the weirdly Star Trekian “phased me”
hwc says:
lgeorge:
I can’t stand a campus like Duke’s where every building is the identical gothic style or (god forbid) like Wake Forrest’s tan brick — as if Disney were building a movie set college campus. I do, however, find a unifying theme of exterior finishes to be a good way to tie together widely different architectural styles, sometimes centuries apart. For example, I think Greylock Quad and Chapin and West College are comfortable on the same campus. I haven’t seen them yet, but I suspect the brick gives the new North and South Academic buildings a chance to “belong”.
It’s good insurance against jarring eye-sore buildings. As ugly as it may be, imagine if Sawyer were soviet-era unfinished concrete like Mission Park. Yikes.
The small amount of brick is the only saving-grace keeping Pareskey from looking like aliens dropped from another planet. It could use a little more to tie it into its surrounding:
photo of Pareskey in context
JG says:
hwc, weren’t the all-white clapboard Dodd Quad houses right there during your tenure? There’s also Goodrich, Thomson Chapel, Lasell & Morgan (as you mentioned), the Observatory, the Science Quad + Jesup as Larry mentioned (and Congo Chruch) and the numerous little white adminstrative houses that you trip over. I guess I just honestly never saw brick as a dominant motiff. I guess this may prove even more how architecture is in the eye of the beholder.
At some point WUFO apparently made the decision to move to the field behind Poker Flats, because I remember their practices outside my Poker window…seemingly all the freakin’ time. Perhaps the change in usage contributed to the decision that there wouldn’t be as much of a stink about putting the in the parking garage, I don’t know.
I still really, really don’t understand why students can’t park in that garage. Has anyone ever put forth a reason?
Edited to sound less snarky (not my intent) and provide more examples.
JeffZ says:
From what I recall, the garage reasoning was something along the lines of, they need most of the spaces when the theater is full (which of course almost never happens during the academic year), and students might not move their cars to accomodate performances. Seems like a school with so many brainy people can figure out a way around this conundrum, but hey, that’s just me …
rory says:
how often are there theater events during the school year that would conflict?
and it’d be easy enough to give one warning and then rescind parking privileges afterwards for students who don’t move their cars in time. it’d take one patrol to write down license plate numbers.
it would screw those students w/ tickets to a show a little, i guess.
Vicarious'83 says:
@40: I remember that the window ledges facing Rte. 7 were especially highly prized in the early ’80s by certain campus horticulturalists for their extended exposure to the afternoon sun – until the Williamstown police gently explained to Campus Security that marijuana plants, growing straight across the street from the police station, was a bit more than they could easily overlook.
sophmom says:
@JG:
The parking issues “drive” my son crazy. He said it is especially frustrating because the lot sits empty most of the time. And they are very quick to issue tickets for any infraction.
I am assuming it is this lot he’s talking about as it’s the one most convenient to his living quarters.
Ronit says:
@Vicarious’83: I lived in one of those rooms that was directly across from the police department. The extended evening sunlight was great. Traffic noise could be a little bothersome, though the trees planted between Rte. 7 and the dorm provided a bit of privacy. Didn’t see any marijuana plants in my time, though.
JeffZ says:
This makes me think of an Ephblog project. Collectively come up with a group of ten common-sense type questions, as narrow and particularized as possible (dealing with alcohol on campus would fall under the all-too-obvious elephant in the room that lends itself to a broad, vague answer, that is not what I have in mind) we’d want to ask the Presidential candidates. Or maybe, if the new President is interested in engaging this blog, once hired we can email them to the President directly. Asking about how to better utilize this parking garage so that it does not sit vacant most of the time would no doubt be near the top of the list.
hwc says:
Those buildings were the Williams Inn when I started at Williams. The new Williams Inn opened while I as at Williams, when Dodd came into existence as a women’s dorm.
You know, I’m not as stupid as you think. Of course there were buildings at Williams that were not red brick. We all know that the campus is a bit of a hodge-podge. A dominant motif doesn’t mean an exclusive motif. Do I really have to list all the brick buildings or can we just start with Williams, Sage, Chapin, Baxter, West, Bronfman, Greylock, Lehman, the Odd Quad, Stetson, Sawyer….
Not only was red brick the default motif at Williams, it was the default motif at many New England colleges in general, starting, of course, with Harvard. The ivy cover brick is a bit of a iconic design element.
Ronit says:
@JeffZ: Great idea. I assume you’ll be leading it?
Larry George says:
Do you think the names of the finalists will be made public?
hwc says:
No, absolutely not… unless it’s Harvard and somebody like Thomas Cech turns them down after the announcement is scheduled and leaked.
Williams will, in all likelihood, be considering current college presidents. They can’t have their names publicly announced.
JG says:
hwc – I don’t think you’re stupid, nor was I trying to imply it. I was merely attempting to demonstrate why I personally never thought of brick (or any other motiff) as being “dominant.” That was actually one of the things I made a note of after an 8-day whirlwind tour of Northeast colleges (and I thought of it as positive).
You’re entitled to your opinion. I’m also entitled to mine. Neither of us needs to be stupid in this scenario. I know they’ve moved various of the little houses around, and I additionally wasn’t sure when the Inn was purchased (since it apparently wasn’t when you started).
Sheesh.
JeffZ says:
Ronit, will do.
hwc says:
JG:
The topic on the table for discussion is whether or not Mission Park should have been concrete when it was built in 1970-1971. Therefore, to determine whether brick was a strong motif to be considered, we have to look at the buildings that were on the campus at that time, not buildings that have been subsequently added.
I am confident that there was near-universal dislike of the Soviet-era concrete exterior of Mission Park at the time of its construction.
JG says:
Given that the only response I can make to hwc right now involves language unbecoming an Eph, I will now absent myself from EphBlog for awhile.
Ken Thomas '93 says:
Jeff: I believe the waffles are a sort of sound baffling, though I may be wrong. If you think of a sound wave as a series of flat planes, each plane will bounce off a flat in essentially the same form. If you have a ellipse– what’s the name for that curve?– the waves will fold around the internal focus, then spread back outwards– normally dissipation.
If you have an odd form– those baffles are log curves?– then the waves should distort ‘asynchronously’– either the center of the wave gets thrown forward, or, in this case, the wave edges.
And if you think of sound as a painting on a wall– a flat painting– it may be almost as if someone wrapped that painting on top of a mountain, and you can only see one layer or ring of elevation at a time. The “complete picture” is missing.
Then– imagine this happening across an entire room, such as a dining hall, with many sound sources. All the signals get mixed.
For anyone who relies on sound, not light, to judge the distance and position, the experience may be– claustophobic may not touch it– it’s as if space was tumbling around, in all directions, as if the wall or window in front of you, suddenly collapsed and melted, vibrating, as if, a thin plastic.
Presuming, of course– a material less porous than concrete.
Larry George says:
JG – I did not experience Williams as being predominantly/default red brick (something I was actively seeking to avoid) either. In fact, that was something that attracted me i the early 70s, just as it attracted you years later. I guess different people see different things, though.
hcw – I don’t think Dodd/the Inn was a women’s dorm. It was coed the first year I remember it as a dorm. I know I lived there the second year. Some of the little houses around it were all-female housing that year and the next and perhaps longer.
(For those of you who don’t know, the College owned Dodd/the former Inn property and granted a 99-year lease on it. When the lease term ended in the early 1970s, the property and its improvements reverted to the College, just as the College was expanding by adding a third to admit females as 1/3 of each class — that quota was later lifted, and the College ended up expanding to 2000 instead of the 1800 to which it had gone after the first four years of admitting female first-years. Some of the little white houses, those south of the Inn, had never been part of the Inn property. At least one had been faculty housing. Kellogg (never student housing, to my knowledge) was actually the College’s first President’s House, I believe (dating to before the College acquired the grand Wedding Cake House); it was moved to its present site in the groupng of little white houses in order to save it when its site nearer Rt.2 was used for something else. In the early 1970s, when Van Ren (formerly a frat house), which then housed the Center for Environmental Studies, was to be torn down for the construction of Sawyer, CES moved into Kellogg. Now, CES has been moved over across Rt.2 to Stetson Court, in Harper House, and Kellogg needs to be moved to accommodate the next step in the library project. It was to be moved and redone to house CES again, but there is no word about the plans now, with the library plans on hold. Kellogg was beloved by CES students, but I’m not sure it will revert to being the CES again. I do hope the College will save it, as its core is a very old building and it has historic significance for the College.)
JeffZ says:
Interesting Ken, thanks. I guess it bothered me in particular since I am relatively tall (6′3), and the waffles made the ceilings feel extra low and hence a bit claustrophobic. I did love the four singles plus common room set-up of Greylock however.
Larry, that history is interesting. From a pedagogical perspective, it makes sense to have CES proximate to the science library, labs, and other science facilities. But I agree it would be a shame to lose Kellogg. I’d love to see it turned into housing — like DK, I am a fan of more smaller coop housing options for seniors in particular, and if Williams continues to enroll slightly larger frosh classes, it will soon need the extra residential space.
Anon 89er says:
The waffles in the Greylock ceilings were just plain baffling. They seem intended to muffle sound, but they also made the ceilings dark and shadowy, and in the midst of a Williamstown winter I found my room in Bryant simply depressing. My best grades in my time at Williams were the semester I spent in Bryant because I spent as much time as I could in Sawyer which I found to be a wonderful architectural space in comparison to that dreary room.
To each their own, I suppose. The loss of the green space at Greylock is woeful, though. Open, accessible, yet somehow intimately contained by the buildings to the South and the curving road and woods to the North. I was not a Wufoian, but enjoyed seeing that a major activity was happening every decent day right outside of the Quad.
Whitney Wilson '90 says:
I guess there is a pretty good chance I know Anon 89er, if (s)he spent a semester in Bryant, unless it was is or her sophomore year. Apparently Greylock is for short people who are OK with darkness; since that is where I ended up, I suppose I am lucky these fit me. The larger lesson of course, is that different people have different preferences when it comes to housing. Williams students are (were?) quite fortunate to have such a wide variety of choices.
'10 says:
Of course there aren’t really a “wide variety of choices” now, given the cluster system… if you’re in Spencer or Wood cluster, you pretty much have to live in Greylock for a year or two, and if you’re in Dodd or Currier you can’t live there even if you want to.
Anon 89er says:
Whitney- I was your suitemate, or in the next suite over, next to the guy who never talked to anyone and cranked up Billy Bragg all days long. Maybe it was the Billy Bragg that drove me out…
I am a small-town lawyer these days, so I like to be pretty anonymous online in case clients google me. I’ll shoot you email later today and say ‘hi’.
Ronit says:
@Whitney Wilson ‘90:
Well, I am short, but I never thought of my Greylock room as particularly dark. I think the rooms had bigger windows than most other dorms on campus.
hwc says:
I believe that the waffle concrete slabs were structural. The Greylock buildings were built as load-bearing brick walls supporting large pre-cast waffle floors that extended to the outside walls. The whole thing is basically a concrete and brick honeycomb structure. The honeycomb floors were shipped to the site and lifted into place as opposed to poured concrete reinforced with re-bar.
You can see the ends of the honeycomb slabs in this photo:
Greylock Quad on flickr
hwc says:
BTW, here’s the list of brick buildings on campus when Mission was opened in 1971. All buildings are red brick except where noted. Correct me if any of these are wrong. My memory isn’t perfect.
West College
Griffin Hall
East College
South College (Fayerweather Hall)
Lawrence Hall
Thompson Biology
Thompson Chemistry
Thompson Physics
Hopkins Hall
Jesup Hall (orange brick, painted)
Wood House
Currier Hall
Clark Hall
Spencer House
Thompson Hall Infirmary
Williams Hall
Chapin Hall
Stetson Hall Library
Sage Hall
Mears House
Tyler House
Cole Field House
Lehman Hall
Heating Plant
Faculty House/Alumni Center
Adams Memorial Theatre
Faculty Housing Project (Poker Flats)
Baxter Hall
Brooks House (tan brick)
Prospect House
Fitch House
Greylock Residential Houses
Greylock Dining
Karl E. Weston Language Lab
Bronfman Science Center
Perry House (tan brick)
Agard House
Tyler House
JeffZ says:
I don’t think Poker Flats was there at the time. And I would not count Jesup which certainly doesn’t come close to having a traditional red brick appearance. Nor would I count Brooks, which looks stylistically more akin to Mission than to, say, West. More to the point, here are a list of then-existing buildings which were NOT red brick, or even close to it. Not as large a list, to be sure, but it shows that employing a non-red-brick material was hardly a dramatic departure even at the time Mission was built (moreover, unlike Mission, which is fairly tucked away, many of these buildings are centrally and prominently located in the heart of campus), and of course, since that time, there have been many more additions to the list:
Morgan
Lasell gym
Thompson Chapel
Goodrich
The Log
Dodd cluster
President’s House
Garfield
Center for Development Econ. (it was called something else then)
Hopkins Observatory
Congregational Church
frank uible says:
In the 50s Poker Flats was faculty housing.
1980 says:
Poker Flats was there. But I remember Jessup as being sort of light pink?
JG says:
And here are more non-red brick places. A few may date post-1971 in terms of actual purchase, but I’m confident that maost of them were around then even if their purposes have morphed between housing, admin, etc. over that time.
Milham
Chadbourne
Mather
Woodbridge
Lambert
Siskind
Jenness
Hardy
Rice
Doughty
Driscoll Dining Hall
Gray stone gate at the football field
Chapman Rink
Towne Field House
The Log
Dodd
Sewall (Dodd Cluster)
Goodrich (Dodd Cluster)
Parsons (Dodd Cluster)
Hubbell (Dodd Cluster)
Sears
Droppers
Taconic Golf Club
Kellog/formerly CES, now just awaiting a home
Harper (current CES home)
“Vogt House” (on Park St. where at some point part of Alumni Relations was housed)
Fernald (torn down a few years ago)
…and now also:
-Oakley Center (founded 1985, I have no idea if we owned the building before then but it was obviously built pre-1971)
-Jewish Religious Center (added early 90s)
-Spencer Studio Art (added late 90s)
Given that neither Jesup, Perry, or Brooks really belong on hwc’s list, I’d say they’re close to even.
But again, this really about one’s subjective impression of how a building fits into one’s likewise subjective impression of the dominant “theme” (if one exists) of the campus. But my attempt to politely agree to disagree over a subjective topic was thrown back in my face rudely, so I am now joining the petty counting of numbers of buildings. I guess sometimes I just enjoy wallowing around in behavioral kindergarten sandbox.
If anyone is curious, here’s the link to the campus timeline of new building projects and renvoations. It’s got some fun info (yes, I’m a nerd).
sophmom says:
(snicker)
Thanks for the great link to the timeline, JG…love that!
sophmom says:
Surprising (to me) to see that Brooks (1961) was built a decade before Mission (1971).
(JG’s link is a treasure chest!)
hwc says:
The Sears cottage was not owned by the college in the 1970s. It had yellow clapboard and the best location of any off-campus house in town.
Photo of Sears House
View today from back yard of Sears House
frank uible says:
Brooks House was built to replace the battered grand old neo-classic Deke house which burned down in January of 1959 and received its current name after Delta Kappa Epsilon along with the other Williams fraternities left campus in the decade of the 60s. Mission Park was built to provide housing for the surge in enrollment caused by the College’s going coed. Incidentally Brooks House was named for Belvidere Brooks, a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, who died in the Great War. To this day an annual award is given in Brooks’ name to an appropriate Williams football player.
sophmom says:
Frank:
I was just investigating Brooks myself (I am particularly interested in it as it was the dorm my son was invited to tour when he visited Williams), and saw that it was named for Belvedere Brooks ‘10.(here’s another great link. See #1 to read about Brooks)
One of the things I absolutely love about Williams (and some of the posts here on EB), is how one thing leads to another and inevitably, a bit of rich historical lore. I mean, how else would I have learned about Belvedere Brooks?
Ronit says:
@frank uible: I wonder if he’s any relation to another great Eph football player, Ethan Brooks ‘96.
frank uible says:
Ronit: I have never heard of any such connection.
sophmom says:
Wow, Ronit.
Another incredible story… another incredible Eph.
aparent says:
I enjoyed the link, too, JG.
Does anyone know what this house in Cambridge, England is used for?
“2003-04
33 Tenison Road, Cambridge, England
Purchase and Renovation: $1,142,155″
Ken Thomas '93 says:
Listed as part of: “Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge” (2007)
Stacey says:
33 Tenison Road might be used for accommodation for Herchel Smith Fellowship awardees…I’m pretty sure that people who get those are associated with Emmanuel.
Ronit says:
Yup. The Herchel Smith fellows study at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
PTC says:
Does anyone have a picture of the toppled over pillar that was once in the foyer of this monstrosity? If so, please post it.
The College for some odd reason took that symbolic display down?
Indeed.