Architecture and the University: Inventing Something Bold and Reinventing the Old

Separate items reported on January 28 in The Chronicle of Higher Education reflect the range of architectural and construction opportunities on today's college campus. At a recent Yale University symposium entitled “Building the Future: the University as Architectural Patron,” speakers promoted innovation and advocated that a campus should consider its physical place in the broader community with “lively, informed discourse about architecture and its role.” See here.

The presentations, of course, included the MIT professor "who is partly responsible for two of the most striking and controversial buildings of the past 10 years — Steven Holl’s Simmons Hall and Frank Gehry’s Stata Center, both at MIT." Speakers suggested that institutions of higher education have a social responsibility to "build well."

By contrast, The Chronicle also noted that eight floors of Chicago's landmark skyscraper, the Pittsfield Building, finished in 1927, will be renovated as dormitory space for students from several nearby Chicago institutions of higher education. The landmark skyscraper "was built for the heirs of the department-store magnate Marshall Field." See here.