Ugly College Campuses

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m sure there are uglier college campuses than SUNY Buffalo’s North Campus (the main one). Somewhere.</p>

<p>This was planned and built at precisely the right time: Just as the student protests were winding down (so that a design that would permit easy military control of the campus had appeal), in the midst of serious inflation and rapidly reducing taxpayer support, and before anyone west of the Hudson had heard of “post-modernism”. In this case, one really has to appreciate the horribleness of the entire design rather than the mere mediocrity of each building – the whole is so, so much worse than the sum of its parts.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.buffalo.edu/aboutub/gallery/#gallery[/url]”>http://www.buffalo.edu/aboutub/gallery/#gallery&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>(Note that this is the university’s own website. These are the attractive pictures!)</p>

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<p>When I go on a school’s website, and the pictures of the campus are all of students hanging around one fountain, that’s a pretty big hint that the rest of the place is UGLY.</p>

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<p>Evans Hall, on the Berkeley campus, is a monstrosity:
<a href=“http://elsa.berkeley.edu/users/rabin/camp00/evans_w.gif[/url]”>http://elsa.berkeley.edu/users/rabin/camp00/evans_w.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Fortunately, it is slated to be torn down and replaced with this (two buildings on left of picture):
<a href=“http://www.cp.berkeley.edu/ncp/goals/index.html[/url]”>http://www.cp.berkeley.edu/ncp/goals/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>U of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. “Severe concrete” in the middle of the woods. Hideous. Nice academic programs (especially Marine Biology), however.</p>

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<p>Speaking of a big fountain, SUNY Albany is pretty bad. I actually attended for a year, H graduated. I think it was probably beautiful when it was new, but 40 year old concrete needs to be powerwashed eventually. No grass left, just lots of sandy dirt. Not enough parking, so cars park all over what was once grassy areas. Plus all the new buildings don’t fit with the unified original architecture. H and I stopped three years ago to show S1 on our way back home from his northeast ivy/lac tour. He was speechless.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.albany.edu/about_the_university/campus_uptown.shtml[/url]”>http://www.albany.edu/about_the_university/campus_uptown.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Wow, I might be showing how bad my taste is, but the only building on page 2 I really couldn’t bear was the tall one at Berkeley scheduled for demolition.</p>

<p>I find some of the grid-like buildings oddly comfortting.</p>

<p>Mentioned before, but always worthy of mentioning again, is the Sawyer Library at Williams. The red brick makes it even uglier, IMO. It, too, is scheduled for demolition, but not until DS leaves. Oh well.</p>

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<p>The Olin Library was still creating quite a stir when I arrived as a grad student, being called the IBM punchcard. The Johnson Art Museum is a bit brutalistic too. </p>

<p><a href=“http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.loomcom.com/Cornell/Cornell-Thumbnails/14.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loomcom.com/Cornell/Cornell.html&h=180&w=240&sz=13&hl=en&start=26&tbnid=9lBQwDma9epp4M:&tbnh=83&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dolin%2Blibrary%2Bc[/url]”>http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.loomcom.com/Cornell/Cornell-Thumbnails/14.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loomcom.com/Cornell/Cornell.html&h=180&w=240&sz=13&hl=en&start=26&tbnid=9lBQwDma9epp4M:&tbnh=83&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dolin%2Blibrary%2Bc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;