Montclair State College - La Campana Yearbook (Upper Montclair, NJ)

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comes close to capturing the essence of a past design in form, the experience of recapturing is a totally different experience from the initial creative process. The observer of today may interpret the visual effect of College Hall as an attrocity , yet would the planners of the early part of the century have considered this view as inevitable? With grand dreams of Montclair as the progenitor of the State ' s secondary educators, the ' institution found itself in the romantic setting of Spanish-type buildings, strangely representative of California, with transplanted pines for landscape. In what is an essentially romantic spirit, the desire to escape, our predecessors create a massive administration-classroom building with a red-tile

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i, The creative idea, that indefineable force which compels man to act, takes form through the mind of man. What causes man to respond to these psychic influences and why the shapes or forms which evolve? One can look back on an age or an era and intellectually conceptualize the motivation responsible for the observed form. However, the experience within the psyche of the observer focuses the mind in directions not yet perceived by the psyche involved in the past era ' s forms. The total collection of the cidtural environment and the experience of the creative psyche, mold the form which appears. Once that form evolves, it proceeds to influence in some way, all forms which follow. If, in the attempt to recreate the experience, man

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roof to suggest the romantic. As a creative artist, the architect had romantic tendencies but was predominantly influenced by an apparent lack of state funds. The result-a building which suggests a style, but it is shackled by the irrational demand of over-capacity enrollment. As the perspectives from the early 1900 ' s to 1970 have changed, so has Montclair. The influence of World War 11 on higher education through the GI Bill found Montclair bursting with new ex-soldier students. As the U.S. headed into the cold war, the emphasis on science and education exploded. Gone is the need for the romantic, however hampered by state funds. Buildings become totally functional