In regular-Joe fashion, I'm partial to the gothic dorms and Nassau-Hall look. Their style is old and solid, and people still consider the buildings beautiful after countless changes in architectural taste.
Similarly, I'm rarely a fan of modernist anything or new whiz-bang gizmos — stock market gains and scientific progress excepted. In a world divided into squares and circles, I'm solidly in the square camp and proud of it. Mops hung on museum walls as art would be better employed cleaning museum floors.
As for literature, any old fool can write down his stream of consciousness — what makes a great author is the ability to craft that into a coherent narrative. I'd rather not listen to music that reminds me of modemconnection chirps and metal spoons banging on garbage can lids. I'll take meringue and ballroom dance, not Paul Taylor standing on stage in silence for three minutes, then walking off to wild applause. Funky hairdos, leather pants and the like just don't do it for me — Brooks Brothers and Burberry do.
After seeing The New York Times Magazine's April 23 spread on Condé Nast's new Frank Gehry-designed cafeteria — think Guggenheim Bilbao — however, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that our new residential college should include a building employing the modernist style. Even though this runs contrary to the fiber of my being, having seen the magazine spread, I think modern rooms can actually look stunning. Gehry has created a masterpiece of undulating blue titanium pillars, ash floors, glass partitions, spacious windows and rippling reflective surfaces. It is beauty of a different order than the dark, high-ceilinged Rocky and Mathey gothic dining halls.
I'm not advocating modern architecture because such buildings are extraordinarily expensive, and I hope to get lucrative kickbacks from architectural firms because of my suggestion. I'm advocating modern architecture because the photos of that cafeteria, Bilbao and San Francisco's TransAmerica building not only portray edifices of unparalleled aesthetic beauty, but they are also much more light, airy and playful than the staid gothic that defines the parts of campus we are proud of.
Modern architecture has something of a bad rap on this campus, largely because of the prison-complex-inspired Butler College and the Soviet-block-style New South building. But modern does not necessarily imply butt-ugly — that is just what a previous generation of administrators chose to build. Modern architecture during the late-1990s and early-2000s has often strived to create a sense of vibrant life and play, rather than the soul-crushing dreariness that people in the 1960s seemed to like. Admittedly, if we go modern, we need to be selective about choosing an architect, asking someone such as Gehry or I.M. Pei if he would be willing to consider designing a University building. Beautiful as it is, this campus already has plenty of Gothic and brick, and too much prison complex. It is time we welcomed in something new.
I know that some administrators will object that such a building would be too expensive. But that shortsighted, penny-pinching view is the sort of mindset that buys us eyesores we will eventually just want to tear down. It is worth spending the extra money to build something we will treasure one hundred years from now.
If we do decide to create a signature modern piece, we will need to take its form into consideration when deciding where to locate it. Perhaps we should put the new college down the hill from Prospect Avenue, where it will not clash as much with the existing buildings. Building there would also provide some harmony with the planned Richard Serra sculpture. Most importantly, building at that location would not require concrete to be placed over scarce open space.
Let's give the modernists a chance to redeem themselves on our campus. It is high time we built something that could draw prospective tours away from the Nassau Hall-Mathey College-Firestone path they currently walk. Sure, it will cost a pretty penny. But somebody's kickbacks need to put me through grad school. Peter Harrell is from Atlanta, Ga. He can be reached at pharrell@princeton.edu.
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