Re:Tradition for Sale: On University Architecture
by gumby on Friday December 01, 2017 @05:23PM
(#15828247)
Oh come on, he answered his own question:
> To my earlier question as to why the university would pursue this course, the easy and obvious response is that the traditionalist architecture of the old colleges has become essential to Yale’s identity...
> When the decision was made [in 1958] to add two colleges ...Yale chose to go modern and to hire Eero Saarinen... he rose to the challenge magnificently.
> Admittedly, acceptance of Morse and Stiles Colleges was fitful. I’ll confess that when I entered Yale as a freshman in 1969 I was pleased to be assigned to ... [a] Gothic quadrangles — and not to one of the “new” residences. After taking Vincent Scully’s course in modern architecture and learning of Saarinen’s importance...
OK, so the traditional aping of Oxbridge is an important part of Yale's branding and he himself is a testament to that. Yet he thinks they should do something essentially inauthentic? As he says elsewhere himself in this essay, dorms are different from academic buildings, and are a crucial part of branding.
MIT also built some Saarinen dorms and I remember people living in them being unhappy with them just on a functional basis.
This would be just as good as a parody of the out-of-touch humanist, except I know it's authentic.
> To my earlier question as to why the university would pursue this course, the easy and obvious response is that the traditionalist architecture of the old colleges has become essential to Yale’s identity...
> When the decision was made [in 1958] to add two colleges ...Yale chose to go modern and to hire Eero Saarinen... he rose to the challenge magnificently.
> Admittedly, acceptance of Morse and Stiles Colleges was fitful. I’ll confess that when I entered Yale as a freshman in 1969 I was pleased to be assigned to ... [a] Gothic quadrangles — and not to one of the “new” residences. After taking Vincent Scully’s course in modern architecture and learning of Saarinen’s importance...
OK, so the traditional aping of Oxbridge is an important part of Yale's branding and he himself is a testament to that. Yet he thinks they should do something essentially inauthentic? As he says elsewhere himself in this essay, dorms are different from academic buildings, and are a crucial part of branding.
MIT also built some Saarinen dorms and I remember people living in them being unhappy with them just on a functional basis.
This would be just as good as a parody of the out-of-touch humanist, except I know it's authentic.