Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Continued from Page 21 beat continued on. In 1963, the Mugar Building was built followed quickly by Speare Hall in 1964. In 1965, there was the first break in the white brick facade when the Ell Student Cent- er addition to the Ell Building was built. But in 1966, the white brick was reinforced when Robinson Hall, Churchill Hall and Stetson Hall were built. White Hall, Light Hall, Smith Hall and Melvin Hall were all added to the campus that year. The next year Dana Hall was completed and in 1968 Docksor Hall was built. The decade where Northeastern built to a climax was completed with Barletta Natatorium (1969), Knowles Center (1969), and Hur- tig Hall (1969). But the 1970s were also a tribute to Northeastern ' s edifice complex. Gryzmish Hall went up in 1970. Volpe Hall was built in 1972, Cahners in 1974, Kerr Hall in 1975 and Stearns in 1977. But the white brick vocabulary had begun to wear thin and Northeastern knew it. When the United Realty prop- erty (now Lake, Nightingale, Holmes and Merserve) was pur- chased in the 1950s it had been scheduled for destruction and re- placement by new white brick buildings and a football stadium, but the new buildings had been delayed. By the late 1970s it was apparent that the design of the property should be saved for ar- chitectural history reasons and the so-called Red Brick campus was born. With the construction of West Apartments, architects learned that they had to give Continued on Page 23 Snell Building breaks the white brick tradition Building to a Climax Editor ' s Note: The following was written by a Northeastern student in 1971. It was called Building to a Climax and, we still feel, says a lot about Northeastern and its edifice complex. That will be all, Richards, said the Lady Botolph. The butler bade them good evening and closed the door as he left. The Lady Botolph lipped a sip of chocolate from her cup and smiled with interest. Leon Dana Churchill stood and walked towards her, staring down. She looked up into his dark, emotionless features, betrayed only by a slight flaring of nostrils. You know what I want, he said flatly. A shadow, part of fear and part joy, clouded her pale, thin and hungry features. She said nothing. Does the Lady know the gentleman wishes to Parker? The Lady Botolph placed her cup of chocolate on the end table and leaned forward in her seat. Her agile fingers parted easily the folds of woolen cloth which stood between her and her goal, but fumbled on the silk within. His hands flashed down to aid her release of the engorged captive. Her eyes widened in incredulous disbelief. There it stood. His Cabot. A truejitetson, nearly an Ell long. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined such a Speare. Suddenly, he pic ked her up in his strong arms and threw her upon the couch. In an instant his hands were within her Greenleaf sheath, upon her Forsythe, probing the soft liquid pool of her Barletta Natatorium. He lowered his face, began to Mugar, and she writhed under the Forsythe Dental and lingual attentions. Quickly he stopped. Turn over, he said. I want it the Hemenway. She tried to Dodge, but was powerless. Placing a Cushing under her, he lifted her Forsythe Annex. Keeping his hands firmly upon her, he thrust his Hayden deep into her Knowles. She screamed and cried out, You ' re Hurtig me, you ' re Hurtig me! But after a few minutes she lost her will in the Gryzmish of their United Realty. Suddenly, from the doorway, a watching Richards shouted, That ' s the way to Docksor, Mr. Churchill. Ha, ha, Leon, acDuff and damned be he that first shall cry, hold enough. — Don Leamy. 22 History

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Only an artist would imagine hallways this clean. H ' f looks like this today. A recreation center that may be built, don ' t hold your breath. Continued from Page 20 outgrown the YMCA building and some rented space across Hunting- ton Avenue. Campus officials be- gan eyeing some vacant property next door on Huntington Avenue. The property had been vacant since a railway stockyard had closed, in 1 903 it had served as the site of the first World Series game, between Boston and Pittsburgh. The university held a design competition and the prominent lo- cal firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bull- finch and Abbott was given the contract. The company attempted to meld two distinct styles in its campus designs. The first was the Beaux Arts school which inspired such buildings as the main hall at MIT and the Museum of Fine Arts. The other school of archi- tectural thought involved was the Bauhaus European school of util- itarian, interconnected design. The resulting conglomeration was the unique white brick, four story vo- cabulary that has followed North- eastern to the present day. The first building put was Rich- ards Hall in 1938. A short time later, Science Hall, now part of Mugar, was built. The Botolph Building, now Cullinane, was pur- chased shortly before the outbreak of World War II, as was Parsons Field in Brookline. Northeastern experienced a boom after the war and the Ell Building (in 1947) and Dodge Li- brary (in 1952) were built to meet it. Several more acres of land were purchased for parking and the Greenleaf and Forsythe Buildings were also purchased. In 1954, Cabot Gym was built, followed by Hayden Hall in 1956. The White Brick architectural Continued on Page 22 History 2 1

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Kariotis Hall, a strange combination of the Red and White brick styles. continued from page 22 more thought to the aesthetics of the campus and not just mix and match. The first building to reflect the new sensibility wasjCargill Hall and the law school. It was built around an underground mall and used little of the white brick — quarried specifically for NU in Vermont — that had dominated the other buildings. The next ma- jor project was Kariotis Hall which split the border between the Red Brick and White Brick campuses and was built as a strange com- bination of the two in 1981. In 1984, the Snell Engineering Building was built as a departure from the other White Brick build- ings around it. With the construction of a new library scheduled to start in the next year (how many times have we heard that before), Northeast- ern campus design will take an- other step away from the tradi- tional white brick style. The new library will probably be five stories high and will contain some design elements from both the Ell Center and Snell, neither of which are di- rect copies of the White Brick, Bauhaus-Beaux Arts style. Still, Northeastern ' s design scheme is a unique one that is easily recogniz- able, even if most students con- sider it too utilitarian. In the next several years, most of the concrete quads are slated to be replaced with green space and some bricks as Northeastern attempts to soften its appearance. It ' s enough to make one wonder if a future stu- dent looking back through old yearbooks will smile at the quaint old four-story, white brick vocab- ulary as a relic of the past, rather than the dominating feature of Northeastern as we knew it. — David S. Kiffer History 23