The view of Cayuga Lake though allows the buildings to be inconspicuous…
Amherst has essentially outgrown its original Olmstead-designed hilltop site and what that means is that every building constructed since the 2000s gives the appearance of playing hide-and-seek with the rest of campus. Particular eyesores include the Merrill science center (of the same Brutalist school as the Wesleyan art center, but, with none of its saving graces), its own arts center which just barely qualifies as a modern building and, I’m afraid, its newest science center, which will require a lot of landscaping to disguise the fact that it looks like an automobile assembly plant.
My grandfather worked in this lovely edifice for twenty-five years.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/29/7b/89/297b891b5730a1fa27a7138c7c53c05a.jpg
Like someone said about a different building upthread–at least if you’re in it, you don’t have to look at it!
@Finnlet, that building is at Michigan Tech, right? It looks like a grain elevator.
@bclintonk, it is indeed. The building that it replaced was wildly outdated, but it certainly had more visual interest than that brutalist grain elevator!
Here’s the prior building: https://cchi.mtu.edu/system/files/styles/archives_watermark_test/private/1ab3bddc-004e-448b-9d7c-dedbc6665b05?itok=HgMjeGt_
Reading this thread makes me wonder why anybody would pay to have a building designed in the 1960s. Hindsight is 20/20, LOL!
Someone mentioned UMASS Amherst campus - so many of the buildings look like utilitarian Russia from the 1950s. What were they thinking? No style, lots of ugly concrete. They get lots of $ from the state for athletics and they pay its executives above average salaries. Why not spend a little money on making the campus more attractive at the same time!
@Momtofourkids Most UMass executives are retired or defeated Massachusetts politicians. That explains most of UMass problems.
@TomSrOfBoston - lol yes - guess the reward is a nice state job with a pension…
Fun fact: Oberlin’s conservatory was designed by the same Japanese architect that designed the former World Trade Center. I think the conservatory is a cool-looking building.