Southeastern Massachusetts University - Scrimshaw Yearbook (North Dartmouth, MA)

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1Continued from previous pagej Ada Louise Huxtable, architectural critic for the New York Times, has observed that architectural styles flash by our con- sciousness with the rapidity of changes in hemlines in the fashion world. Fashion in building has gone from the Brutalism of the sixties, to the high-tech reflective skin of the seventies, to today's idiosyncratic 'lcontextualismf' The avant-garde makes its statement, and, having left its most visible mark, moves on. lt is difficult, she says, to dump an unwanted building in a flea market. lt is with us. SMU, we find, is part of the evident remains of Brutalism, an architectural style characterized by rough, even threatening, surfaces on buildings made of unadorned cement. lt is the architect's primal scream. Paul Rudolph's most impressive building complex remains the SMU campus. Its plan and its lllook have influenced dozens of university buildings since its initial design in 1963. These imitators declare at once the appropriateness of our campus to communal design, and by their thin packaging, the poverty of imitation by the unimaginative. What was Rudolph trying to do here that makes SMU a topic of discussion in the eighties, that generates such imitation, and at the same time, makes the lllook of SMU so indisputably of the sixties? What makes this place a current topic of discussion is the undeniable where-ness of SMU. Upon arriving on campus, one feels that this is a place unlike any other. A completeness is felt. SMU is total. From any angle its silhouette changes, yet it remains the same place. lts llIook is inescapable. This, of course, can also be discomforting. But authors, egged on by some scholarly compulsion to write about SMU have seen the drama present here. ln 1970, the giant, three story interior spaces which so K Continued on next pagel . V, . , F ,MY . - t -W S 531 fi i g nr., . ' ya: gg ,J . wi R' .V A 1 5 'Q if -V, l K A , . . S t - ar . 'Zi - .-:,.,---4- ' , QN - Q 'TQ fi -1, T .5395 . Ttu'kN- .- T 1 I Y il l i 3 v. ',, Ji' nf l Y C5 rffhxll Y:- A ,. U' 4 I ' I , , .f. f r' L

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SMU is a university born in the sixties. Its university status and organizational style were formed between the founding of SMTI in 1960 and the creation of SMU in 1969 A visiting architectural historian would reach the same conclusion: this building complex, despite its recent classroom additions, could have been designed in no other decade. When our visiting historian approaches campus, he senses that he is stepping back into the past. It is as if he is seeing some mis- placed space station stuck in a time-warp: the year is 1966. In that year, Paul Rudolph, then Chairman of the School of Art and Architecture at Yale University and a well-known and outspoken architect of national stature, oversaw the comple- tion of the first phase of his master plan for Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute. He would later, in a talk delivered in 1979, compare this campus design with such ar- chetypal urban plans as Sienna, Italy. The compelling integrity of its medieval town square is caused by the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico which throws an invisible enveloping canopy over the entire space below. The tower organizes and controls the focus of the streets which empty into the square. In the same way, he insists, the SMU campus is controlled by the campanile, around which the corridor between Group I and Group ll pivots on its way to the pond below. Its greenspace is carefully, systematically, removed from service accesses. This, Rudolph declares, is nothing less than the prototype for town planning of the future. This is quite an ambitious role for a jumble of cement col- umns and overhanging ledges we often see as the unavoidable reminder of our collective discomfort. Why should these buildings, which to some are invested with the sensitivity of a DeviI's Island Mess Hall, warrant such notoriety? K Continued on next pagej f ff . I I N t Q 'fm 5 . -gt.. c X il a . 6 4. 1 , 'E A 1 I f ,, J , .. H , W ..V.. . . , I 'S ' y L ,,,, f ' , s si -r 'aa Q7 Q. - 'l r ' . r - Nz. S .-fa. v , ci, ,,,,, - . , K.,-ag51 -. c, Jw M' 7- K ' Sv- jxwv fx 1 .' x .. , , ' 7 T, H- x .. l A A v J 5.1: ? 4 X 47 f A 4, V1 g ,xg X 1 I fi, ,M -,M K., 'D ,. M 1. -, X .. W' Q . 1 an - B x n, 'Qixgm -x pc mai 413, iv . X as -.H s .f H as sg-at ff' 'sings' 9- -Nr' ' .Lf 'W .xf q-.f lx 5. ' - ' N 'ak fl gl 'gg' ' 3 5, 3 N il'-S. it A. g TKNJSR V. ,Q ,f Q Q, xx, , ,hwy Vxzq u k . ngazz, I 1 120 lf.,-,, ff :: v-JFQQ, f , ' MX -453, ,m.,,'f.,- J -.. 'f--. 'xw gk T ,ft ' Q. . 'H '-. 'yn 4- . fftwqwx- 1 f Aff.-4-1 -. 'Rt 'Tiki' H- I b 14 W 3l1? 'P! X 'W-ol? ' '-.fjh . ,..--S T 4

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- . 5 r '?'5f:sKi'..w,5'5.!aTii2':..eM,f.s.:nr.:-u - '--- pg V -- 3.., ' A ' ,:,. . . .,, - 'sgi-J' . . -- - -1i H - 4532f??'f.Q?5335i25i5f32s s- ' ' A.iQ T 1 . - I C ontinued from previous page! dominate our memory of every building were called 'spiralling malls or llsky lobbiesw by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Rudolph's biog- rapher. She noted the thrusting horizontals which dramatically violate the plate glass and seem to open every space to the outdoors, This, she said, is a constant reminder of Rudolph's vision of a building which intentionally contrasts Uthe vast void of the open landscape and the measured ratios of instructional spaces. SMU is 'fa centrifugal environment maker and the place where Rudolph's work achieves 'harmonious totality. This is strong stuff for a school whose heating system never seems to correspond to the seasons and whose narrow and sometimes dark corridors exude the heavy air of cement blocks. And this is said about these same interior spaces which so often draw our criticism. What of the exterior? First, the circular plan of the campus and its parking lot 'lf' af' .f , ' V ',, .-'F ' , L' 'W V if ,.c,A,,,,3fvgss,x-1-f--: -if' 1 ' , Q ' -V ' . X - ,. -' , - V' A Q ' ,,,s- f,s-1.-xv-Kiwi? -N 'LST' X' , R' Wigs'-P ,gpg gas f fa 5 - .vi-' J- - ' gf , ., .. :- ' ::s'w:x.: we -4 W :Am ' fn , A X , , 6 sw we -5' X4 3 assf ,f'fwfs- a 'WYKV 1- ' A Q.-s,ut.,g,.1m.i...-Y-a...1i. . J , W ' f. A ,ft .4 sc, ,if- v 'X sf -. :N ' if ,fa 1 f --ex s . Q 'P St P X 7 Xxwxx E 9 L w. . f gf ' -. ' I ' lt- :fha . .t - - f,-gs: Q .XX 5, W , Y---,--gg V . X ,t ,X XX xxx S I . , - ., , x, so N, s... .5 Ar, XR x.xXx,XX ., ,N - xx xx A - 1 N , , , l K - E ., A x ,V M-gr-I-'DN-,-.,,....:.. mounds lend a touch of Stonehengian fundamentality. We are reminded in our approach that Rudolph doesn't really like to have automobiles intrude upon a non-mechanistic environ- ment. Another author, Robert Spade, suggests uthe pedestrian status of the campus centre is . . . the only means of controlling the scale of an . . . institution intended for rapid growth , he is telling us the campus is intended to remain exclusively an envi- ronment for humans, no matter how large it gets. This oddly contradictory statement hits home to those of us who inhabit this place. We are, at various times, struck by the harshness of our surroundings, the uncompromising severity of the surfaces, and at other times compelled to admire a set of buildings which when seen by night or in the dramatic light of sunset becomes a sculptural statement in its most heroic form. 1 Continued on next pagej :Tl E' 5 Q -gi 3 ,l 3 1 I I i .' 5. , -' . , Y . Y ,ij n 5- l . ' I . - . t F V, -,, ll 1 , s V W'