University of Nebraska Lincoln - Cornhusker Yearbook (Lincoln, NE)

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TT PROPOSED BUILCme 5lTOATI0n PLAtl LincoLH City ■ Campus UniVtRSITY OF • ME5ltA5KA Now no architect and no artist in all the long history of art and its development ever succeeded in creating a new form, nor will they m the future ever succeed in so doing. They have discovered the beauty of form and have adapted it to our uses and our tastes and our comfort. For instance, it has been said that a Greek workman some centuries before the beginning of the Christian era, carelessly placed a hollow tile cylinder upon the ground over a sprouting Acanthus plant and that in due time the plant grew up inside the tile and out of the top thereof and a builder passing by noted the beauty of the combination — the tile and the Acanthus plant growing out of it. This became the motif of the capitol of the Corinthian column that has been reproduced to this day in our most artistic structures. Again, we suppose that a gable roof is the simplest possible form of construction, the purpose of which is to keep the rain out of a building and the form was used by primitive builders for that pur- pose alone and without consciousness that it would one day be the form that should be used as n covering of the Parthenon, the most beautiful building of all times, nor that it would become the motif of the great Gothic cathedrals of the middle ages. Again, after the same method, there seems to be developing in this country of ours a new theme, or mot ' f, in architecture that, like the others I have mentioned, seems to be the result of chance or PaKe :{ 1 ' [lIIK AVWAWA A yA A AVTAM

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he Qrcatcr Vniversity XT i out i)t our experience (out of the college of hard knocks), for the most part, that we form opinions governing our own lives and directing our own judgments and activities: and in ik-i manner it is out of the experience of our University (supported by a study of the experience of others of her kind) that we must formulate opinions that will govern our activities in the matter of planning her future. Now It is a very noteworthy fact that this simple statement of a very self-evident truth never, for a moment, escapes the attention of the co-ordinate governing Kxlies of the University, when applied to the direction of any of her academic or athletic activities; but it is also quite noteworthy that we have been, for the most part, quite immune to the influence of this simple truth when applied to the planning of an adequate zone or comprehensive landscape that will care for the orderly growth and expansion of the University in a physical way in a manner at all commensurate with the opportunities offered. The net result of such confusion (to express it in a homely way) is that we are eternally trying to fit an outgrown garment to an overgrown child with the result that neither the child nor the gar ment can possibly be happy or contented in their contact with each other. This condition of affairs prevails not alone at Nebraska, but is even more positively notable in almost all the colleges and universities of our land; to the extent that, as a general rule, the greater their wealth and opportunity, the more notable has been their lack of adequate landscape plan. In partial extenuation of this sad condition it has been truthfully said that the student enrollment in al! major educational institutions has doubled during the past ten years — a growth that is bringing to our trustees and regents a situation so acute that it staggers our resources and our ingenuity, and we have bought relief by directing our energies hurriedly toward the housing problem, seeking available build- ing spaces without ttx much regard for the settings and without tcKi large a perspective, and we have appealed in our distress to our most available architect to supply our most imminent housing problems, losing sight of the artistic and cultural possibilities of a setting that will make our building a part and parcel of a plan that will unity our whole campus, l(K)king toward the completion of a comprehensive picture. A good campus landscape can be likened, for illustration, to a well-executed and well framed painting in which every figure has its place and an adequate reason therefore. We have all noted that every great picture has for its main motif a central figure supported by others that are intended to emphasise the artist ' s thought. This is exemplified by the famous painting by Moncocci — Christ before Pilot — in which the figure of Christ is supported by a Jewish rabble crying aloud Crucify Him and which is supported further by a likeness of Pilot himself setting in judgment in the case; every part o! the picture being devoted to directing the observer ' s attention to the figure that has been made the motif of the picture. Further illustrating the same point, 1 observe that we travel thousiinds of miles, maybe to Yellowstone Park, to take a seat upon what is called Pulpit Rock in the Canyon of the Yellowstone in order to get a view of the falls which becomes the central feature of an unobstructed view supported on both sides by the varied-colored walls of the canyon. Again we may visualize a home located at the east end of a long avenue that is flanked by lofty trees and that at aKnit the time of the equinox the sunset appe.irs in the west directly in the midst of this setting of trees and the effect of all of this wiis that Nature had provided a picture with a ceutral feature well supj-Hirted and we ' l flamed. PnUf 2 I 1 ' 1 1 IT V A M ' ' M K H(Ni i H

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necessity, or both. In any event, not premeditateJ. It seems to have Ivcn horn of the necessity in cities like New York and Chicai o, u ' here the lofty buildings began to make dark caverns of the streets and city ordinances became necessary to provide an ever- increasing setback as the buildings assumed hftier and loftier proportions. And, lo and behold! It suddenly davoned up in artists that this method of construction greatly improved the beauty and symmetry of the structure and as a result of it wc have such buildings as the Tribune building, of Chicago, and the new State Capitol of Nebraska as the forerunners of a new and purely American culture. Now we have observed that the finest examples of landscape that we find in the vicinity of our cities arc the golf courses and, strange to say, these were never laid out for the primary purp ise of creating landscape but were created for the sole purpose of providing nine or eighteen, (as the case may l-e) fairways that the player might have an unobstructed view between his tee and his flag. The net result (if which VnMs to create the kind of a picture that I have just described to you with the flag for the central figure, supported on either side by trees or .shrubs or drives or creeks or any other natural work of not sufficient note to detract from the central feature. Now to apply my interpretation of what a picture is or wh.it a picture might to be; by like rules, lo a landscape, or what a landscape should be: I. A landscape should have a well-defined and well wrought boundary which would answer as the artistic frame to our picture; and, first of all, I might say suggestively that a street or streets can never be adequate boundaries for a landscape, for the very simple reason that its creator may not con- tiol the vista on the other side. A thicket, a river or a screen of shrubs or trees might an.swer for a boundary or, where the necessities of the case require, a landscape may be bounded by a h.ilf bhvk of ground surrounding it and f;icmg it, the construction and planting thereon being planned for framing purposes. In other words, tlie first rule governing the creation of ,i l.mdscape is that no matter where within the enclosure the observer m;iy stand he may not be permitted to see an objectionable thing from ail artistic point of view. II. The second important objective that one should seek lo .icquire is that there K no imssible avenue of ;ipproach or entry into our landscape scheme through which an objectit)nable view could be had, and from every important avenue of .ipproach the builder .should strive lo present to the observer a picture complete in itself with a central feature (preferably .s ime monumental building) supported oi: either side by pl.intmus or le.s.ser structures thai m.iy .serve to .iccentuale the view. o