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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 31, 1965
Letters Condemn Fraser Image
Guard Towers-
Dear Sir:
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MY CONGRATULATIONS to T. R. Griest of Topeka! He has managed to combine, in one building, all the worst features of modern architecture and has capped it with a red roof. And then he obviously had an afterthought, which he placed conveniently out of the way atop the pretty red roof. Two afterthoughts, that is. Granted that KU students have been somewhat unruly lately, I hardly think it necessary to provide future buildings with guard towers suitable for searchlights and machine guns.
With all due respect to the desire for a reasonably uniform theme for new university buildings and to the very understandable desire to perpetuate the twin towers of the present Fraser, I suggest that this design be sent back for revision. If this is the best that the state architect's office can do I believe KU would profit, esthetically at least, by allowing KU architecture students to design the new building. At least they have some imagination. As Chancellor Wescoe stated, the new Fraser and Blake will provide for many visitors "the physical image of the university." With this as an image, how can KU hope to be considered a great institution? Unless, of course, those guard towers indicate planned transformation into a penal institution.
Jack D. Salmon,
Elkhart
graduate student
Open Letter-
An open letter to Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe:
I am sure that any one of KU's architect students could provide a better solution to the problem of a new Fraser than that monstrosity pictured in the UDK. And I'm not the only one that's laughing. I plead with you to give the students of KU something to look at and take pride in. I hate to think of them saying to their parents, "Yes, unfortunately, that is the new Fraser!"
And for those of us who live near and must pass this new building daily. I'm sure I voice a common opinion when I say that it is atrocious.
I ask you to please take action against it.
Sincerely,
Lois Adams,
Miller Hall
Norris Dam -
To the Editor:
I MUST ADMIT THAT ON first impression New Fraser struck me as a combination of Old Fraser, a new County Court House and Fort Knox. However, upon reflection I decided it had a closer relative; paging through the Goodman brothers' Communitas I found the culprit (p. 114), captioned, "severely decorative functionalism" . . . a power plant on the Norris Dam. Maybe that's the image they have.
Thank you,
Bill Manning,
Wichita junior
NEW FRASER—Construction will begin in June on a 7-story $2.2 million building to replace old Fraser Hall. This view of the model building is
from the northwest. The new building will be just east of the present Fraser.
We Asked for It
If one can judge from the letters which appear on this page or by the petition now circulating, campus opinion is decidedly against the new Fraser.
It should be. There is one point, however, that should be considered. In some measure, we asked for it.
When the plans for razing Fraser were first announced, a furor resulted that would make one think that motherhood or apple pie had been attacked. A great wave of nostalgia swept the campus and the teary-eyed alums who remembered the twin towers of old Fraser pleaded that the towers be a part of the new building.
SOMEONE YELLED LOUDLY enough. There they are, the two towers. I hope the alums and the students are happy. It is true that the towers could have been better arranged as to lend themselves to the aesthetic beauty of the building.
It is unfortunate that an architect or the administration should be so intimidated by public opinion that they sacrifice beauty for its appeasement. The architect's professional integrity has seemingly been prostrated for the sake of public opinion.
The architect has the obligation to create a building that is in conformity to good taste and architectural creativity. He does not have the obligation to pander to the whimsical and often-changing ideas of the public. In some cases, he has an obligation not to pacify such tastes. Often they are not worth considering.
The wish that the new Fraser could somehow incorporate the old Fraser is understandable, but the combination which has resulted is a desecration of both the architect's and the public's integrity.
- Leta Roth
Fraser Contradicts Basic Tenets
Attention:
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe
Dear Sir:
THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES during my brief sojourn at this institution when I thought University policy was somehow inexplicably, diametrically opposed to the very theories and teachings that the various departments of the University were trying to foster. However, nowhere, at no time, has there been so thorough a desecration of the most basic tenets taught by one of his University's departments as is the desecration of our Department of Architecture, and its very foundations, by this abortive design effort called "new Fraser."
Its very design criteria, "sheer mass bulk and volume for mass bulk and volume's sake alone," are not even slightly sympathetic to the scale of its surrounding buildings. Watkins will be dwarfed; Blake Hall will be greatly diminished; Danforth Chapel will be visually obliterated. Even mighty Watson will become insignificant. This is not to condemn all seven-story buildings, for I do sincerely believe a solution could be found that would house just as many students without destroying its whole basis for being.
Not only is the architecture bad, but also the placement of
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the building. The only changes achieved by removing the pioneer statue and replacing it with this building would be the destruction of: the green mall to new Blake; the vista between the Chancellor's Residence and the central campus; the landscape transition from institutional campus to residential campus; the intimate scale of the health center; and the general aesthetic spacing of all surrounding buildings. All the precious balance of scale and proportion that our landscape department has painstakingly achieved over the past four decades will be as nothing when this awkward behemoth takes over its site.
Maybe I'm wrongly prejudging the basic tenets of the University: maybe the whole purpose of this University's policy is to negatively inspire the student to rise out of his environment.
Bill Prelogar,
Grandview, Mo., senior.
Department of Architecture
Protest Petition-
Dear Sir:
THE CHANCELLOR is quoted in the Daily Kansan (Monday, March 29, 1965) as saying, "The plans for new Fraser Hall provide a remarkable combination of the traditional and the functional. New Fraser and nearby Blake Hall have been designed with great care because they will represent for many the physical image of the University. They will occupy the crowning location on a magnificent campus site." We must agree with the Chancellor in his remarks about the location—it is certainly one of the most prominent on the campus. We agree also that the buildings occupying this location will "represent the physical image of the University," since the architecture of a university is a vital (and inevitable) part of the university's role as the reflection of and molder of the aesthetic tastes of the community which it serves. Moreover, we agree that the combination of the traditional and the functional to which the Chancellor refers is indeed remarkable — so remarkable in fact, that we cannot let our horror of it go unexpressed. We realize that the task of harmoniously uniting past and present in an architectural design is a very difficult one, requiring that a delicate balance be achieved. Therefore, we cannot condemn an architect for failing to accomplish this. We do, however, condemn the insistence upon building this failure, a failure which we feel is a violation of, rather than a continuation of the tradition represented by old Fraser. We certainly do not hope that the plans are a move toward the establishment of a new tradition and above all, we feel that they are not the valid realization of the aesthetic ideals of the people of Kansas.
Because we hold these opinions, and because we believe that others share them with us, we are circulating a petition for the consideration and signature of interested people. We hope to collect signatures in sufficient number to warrant the presentation of the petition to the Chancellor and the Board of Regents. The petition reads as follows:
"We, the undersigned students, faculty and friends of the University, respectfully request that the current plan for New Fraser Hall be rejected on the grounds that it tends to further the trend of de-beautification already manifested in such buildings as New Blake Hall. Further, we submit that the present design does not meet even the minimum aesthetic requirement of architecture and, rather than preserving the character of Old Fraser Hall, distorts and perverts it."
Thank you.
Walter M. Hull,
Lawrence Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas Graduate Student and Assistant Instructor, Intensive English Center Ruth Hull.
Lawrence, Kansas Graduate Student and Teaching Assistant, German Department