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Monday, October 17, 1993
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WESCOE: Transforming a grand vision into an affordable reality
Continued from Page 1.
modate the total class demand.
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe looks over the vacant area where Wescoe Hall now stands. The site stood empty for almost a year after old buildings were razed and before the construction on the new building began.
Desperation was nearing for the University. New architects were selected in the summer of 1969, and they came up with the plans that were finally used.
Photo courtesy of University Archives
Early designs from those architects were of a four-story precast concrete structure with a small tower over part of the building to contain office space and a two-level parking facility in the basement. However, the tower was eliminated because of the cost, and offices were moved into what would have been parking on levels one and two.
$8 million.
But finally, in the late months of 1969, plans were revealed for the "new Wescoe Hall," the design that ultimately was constructed. And what was the estimated cost for the building?
It had been two years since the original plans were revealed, and Wescoe was 22 stories lower than the original design and a million dollars more expensive. But it was going to have be that way. KU could afford no more delays.
Looking into its pockets, however, KU had less than $6 million to spend on the building. An additional revenue source was needed.
Enter the student fee
Early in 1970, Chancellor Wesco approached DavidAwbrey, who was president of Student Senate, to see whether the students would foot the remainder of the building cost. The students had paid for only nonacademic buildings in the past, such as
Awbrey, now editorial page editoror at the Wichita Eagle, said the Legislature had been hostile toward KU because of student activism on campus tied mostly to the Vietnam War. Many times the campus nearly had shut down because of protests and violence on campus and throughout Lawrence.
the Kansas Union and the student hospital.
Wesco Hall, as it stands today, is a mere four-story building compared to the original plans of a 26-story humanities haven. Wesco is in its 20th year as a prominent building on campus.
"That was an attempt to show that the students were concerned about
But the students knew the need for a new building was desperate, Awbrey said. On Feb. 18, 1970, two days before the Regents meeting, Student Senate hastily approved a student fee of $7.50 a semester to help pay for Wescoe Hall. The fee was intended to raise $2.5 million for the building.
the campus," Awbrey said. "It was certainly controversial, but I didn't feel bad about the decision."
Chancellor Wesco was able to take word of the Senate action to the Regents meeting, and the designs for Wesco Hall were approved.
The controversy was far from over, however. Some students were outraged by the Senate decision and petitioned to bring the fee to a student referendum. The petitioners obtained the required number of signatures and presented the petition to Senate on March 9 for an April 7 election.
On March 10, 1970, the state House of Representatives defeated a bill that would have allowed student fees and subsequent revenue bonds to pay for academic buildings. After pleas from KU and the Regents, the Legislature reached a compromise that would allow student funding of the building.
The campus planning board issued a statement on March 17 that said that "buildings needed for instruction should be provided by the state, and it is basically wrong to ask students to pay for the buildings in which they are taught."
Heller said.
The planning board said, however, that the Senate action was "in the best interests of the University and of its students" because of the special urgency of the situation.
The floor may buckle,but foundation sits rock solid
Resistance on campus
Slanted floors and ceilings on the first floor of Wescoe Hall have helped perpetuate a campus myth that it has a bad foundation and is sliding down the hill toward Malott Hall.
The referendum, however, was only an opinion. The earlier fee approved by Senate prevailed as a binding decision.
"Either we were going to pay for it, or we were not going to have the building," Awbrey said. "It was not a
On April 7, 1970, the students voted in a referendum on whether they should pay for Wescoe. Students voted against the fee by a 2-1 margin.
popular thing, but it was just one of those things that had to be done."
"There were a lot of students who thought the state should pay for it, and a lot of faculty thought so, too,"
Imagine what 26 stories could have done.
Bids went on on Wescoe and came back less than expected:$7.8 million. Construction began in May 1971, and the much-needed fourth-floor classrooms were opened in August 1973. The rest of the building opened
But the idea of students funding an academic building was not well received by most people on campus.
throughout the 1973-74 school year as departments moved in one by one.
Students began paying the fee for Wescoe in Fall 1972. The fee was later reduced to $2.50 a semester because of higher than expected student population growth and finally was eliminated in 1982.
Jim Modig, director of design and construction management, said this was purely a myth.
Wescoe's basement-level floors are concrete slabs similar to a sidewalk, Modig said. They are not resting on the foundation but on the ground.
A necessary monstrosity
He said the crooked floors and ceilings first were noticed in 1985 and were studied more extensively this summer.
Modig said the floors were poured on a base of shale, which is soft, porous and easily breakable. When the topsail was excavated for Wescoe's construction, the
floors weighed less than the removed soil. The ground was therefore rebounding, or pushing up on, some parts of the floor.
Once the building was complete, student and faculty reaction to its appearance was mixed. Heller said.
Modig said Wescoe's structural foundation is on a rock base, which is stable as far as anyone knows.
SHAN SCHWARTZ
Only the basement floors and ceilings are moving. Some spots in the basement have shifted up as much as 3 inches. Modig said.
He said the University had several options in repairing the warped floors and ceilings, including not doing anything. He said the building posed no health or safety code-related risks.
"When people saw the floors crooked, they feared major structural damage," Modig said. "But to the best of our knowledge, the building sits exactly where it's always been."
"The people who had to work there weren't so happy about it once they realized what it was like," Heller said. "The faculty realized they'd be working in windowless cubicles.
Amid limestone sits Wescoe's concrete mass
It is obvious, when walking down Jayhawk Boulevard, that Wescoe Hall does not quite fit in with the architectural styles of its neighbors.
"Wescoe was sort of the architectural cliché," said Allen Wiechert, university architect and director of capital programs. "It is characterized as brutalistic architecture."
Wechert said other buildings similar to Wescoe were the Boston City Hall and the Yale University School of Architecture building.
"A lot of the buildings on campus tend to reflect the architectural styles at the time in which they were built," Wiechert said. "KU doesn't have any particular style, as some campuses do."
materials of buildings on campus but the color of the original campus," Wiechert said. Those colors are usually buff or tan with red roofs, such as Fraser and Dyche halls.
Wiechert said that most campus buildings were made of Kansas stone but that some were made of Indiana limestone.
Other precast concrete structures similar to Wescoe are the Computer Services Facility and the Parking Facility by Allen Field House, Wiechert said. The difference between those facilities is the color of the concrete; Wescoe is gray, while the others are brown.
"In the last 25 years, we've tried not to dictate the
How would the original 26-story plan for Wescoe have affected future campus buildings?
"It would have had a pronounced effect on the skyline of the University and dictated the massing of buildings after that." Wiechert said.
"It would have been like a huge sundial. We could have put big marks on Jayhawk Boulevard to let people know what time it was."
"But as far as the students were concerned, it was a new building, spacious, clean and lots of classrooms."
SHAN SCHWARTZ
Awbrey, however, like many others,
was not fond of the building.
"It was an architectural and aesthetic disaster," Awbrey said. "Every time I am on campus, I feel personally remorseful that I had any part in the construction of that monstrosity."
Although alumni, students and faculty still are not fond of Wescoe, it has succeeded in meeting its original needs. Wescoe currently houses 11 academic departments, more than 250 offices for faculty and teaching assistants, and 20 campus of all classroom space on campus.
For 20 years, Wescoe has played a crucial role in the daily operation of the University.
And KU almost had to live without it.
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