campus architecture
Spooner Hall: Barry Newton, associate professor of architecture, called it restrained, modest and thoughtful. "It's like a well-edited book," he said.
Beautiful Buildings (But is the beauty only skin deep?)
By Phillip Brownlee Photography by Tom Leininger
Adams Alumni Center: "it takes classical architecture to a new low level," said Barry Newton, associate professor of architecture.
Wescoe Hall: It comes under the heading of crimes against humanity, said John Gaunt, dean of architecture. "It's just painful to even look at."
The KU campus is known for its beauty. But KU's architecture professors have said the beauty is only skin deep.
On closer inspection, the central campus has many flaws, the professors said, including ugly buildings and poorly designed uses of space, which are not adequately addressed in the new campus plan being reviewed by
"The charm of the KU campus is not in the appearance of its buildings but in the campus as a whole," said Steve Grabow, professor of architecture and urban design.
While the professors can quickly list off the good, the bad and the ugly of KU architecture — Spooner Hall, Adams Alumni Center, and Wescoe Hall, respectively — they are more bothered by the buildings' interiors.
"As life goes on here, you become irritated by the lack of interior quality and function of some of the buildings," said John Gaunt, dean of architecture and urban design.
"Buildings need to be expansive and outreach, rather than dark and closed and contained," he said.
Kent Spreckelmeyer, chairman of the department of architecture.
said the buildings needed to be more transparent to take advantage of the landscape and view.
Wescoe Hall was mentioned as one of many KU buildings that were confined and had few perimeter views.
"Faculty at Wescoe feel like chickens in a coop." Grabow said.
Grabow is particularly concerned that there is no gathering spot on campus. Unlike other universities, such as Harvard, KU has no central yard where students can meet.
The professors also are bothered by how spaces between buildings are used or not used.
"When the Jayhawks won the national basketball championship, people wanted to come together in a space but were strung out in a thin line along Jayhawk Boulevard, Grabow said.
As a result, students ended up climbing and damaging numerous trees, he said.
KU's architecture doesn't reflect Mount Oread's beauty, professors
Grabow pointed to Wescoe Beach as proof of this desire to gather. Even though it is ugly, harsh and poorly designed, Wescoe Beach is a popular meeting spot, he said.
Grabow also is interested in the use of space around Javahk Boulevard. The current cam-
say
pus plan proposes adding a few feet of sidewalk to each side of the street.
Grabow wants to explore other possibilities, such as confining traffic to one side of the road or closing it off completely.
Barry Newton, associate professor of architecture and urban design, said better landscape planning would help create spots to congregate and link people. As it is, planning seems limited to paving paths worn by students, he said.
"I'm nervous about making the same step twice because I imagine there is some sort of concrete path-laying machine following me," he said. Grabow said that too often all the
Even though the professors are critical, they agreed that the campus was beautiful in spite of itself.
"When you come here you are struck by the beauty of the campus." Snyreckelmeier said.
projects went into the building, and only grass seed money was leftover for the landscaping.
But the professors attributed much of this beauty to the campus topography, not its architecture.
In other words, a great view covers a multitude of KU's architectural sins.
And in Wescoe's case, bad architecture also can be overcome by the needs of people, Gaunt said.
"The landscaping reinforces an arcadian view of this little city on a hill," Spreckelmeyer said. "This is such a forgiving landscape."
Barry Newton, associate professor of architecture, ranks his top five favorite and five least-like structures on the KU campus.
The Best
1. Spooner Hall
"Clear, well-ordered form"
2. Dyche Hall "Decorative narrative"
3. Memorial Stadium
"Monumental clarity"
4. Stauffer-Flint Hall
4. Stauffer-Flint Hall "Romantic silhouette
"Romantic silhouette"
5. Lippincott Hall
8. Lippmann Hart "Manufactured classicism"
The Worst
1. Adams Alumni Center
"Poorly resolved form and decoration"
2. Anschutz Science Library
3. Wescoe Hall
"Inappropriate detail on a uniform concrete framer."
"Brutal exterior and gloomy interior"
"Biand copy of the original"
8. Kansas Union
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
"Disordered inside and out"
*PAGE 6A
OCTOBER 3,1995
Lead Story
Larry Wayne Harris, a septic-tank inspector in Dublin, Ohio, and a member of the Aryan nations white supremacist group, was charged in May with purchasing vials of freeze-dried bubonic plague under false pretenses. He had told American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, Md., that he owned a lab and was a serious researcher of bubonic plague.
Among the budget cuts that Albany, N.Y., mayor Thomas Whalen III made during his term of office was the closing of a certain firehouse — to the sharp protests of its neighbors. In January, after Whalen left office, his car caught fire near the former firehouse and burned up.
What Goes Around Comes Around
In January in Baltimore, Michael Wayne Heim, 26, pleaded guilty to arson. In June 1994, he had stolen his ex-wife's car, intending to set it on fire in the street and aim it into the home of her mother. However, the flames got out of hand with Heim still in the car, and the resulting crash and fire left Heim in a coma for 23 days and caused him to need several skin grafts.
First Things First
Vincente Vinarao, director of the Bureau of Corrections in the Philippines, complained in July that he was having trouble carrying out his duties because his bureau lacks funds. There are 54 people on death row, sentenced to die in a gas chamber, but there is no gas chamber. An emergency bill last year authorized that execution be carried out by electrocution until such time as a gas chamber is built, but the electric chair was destroyed several years ago by lightening.
Newspaper editor Glenn Sorlie died on May 2 in Belgrade, Mont., of a staph infection, but his wife failed to notify anyone until May 4 so his obituary would be published first in his weekly newspaper, the High County Independent Press. If she had notified authorities earlier, the Boxman Daily Chronicle would have published the story first. Sad Mrs. Sorlie. "[H]e wouldn't want to get scooped on his own death."