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The Stata Center sucks? Yeah, well so does much of BU, critic sniffs
By adamg on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 6:57pm
Silber Knocks New Architecture in Book, Built Junk at Boston U.
One guess what the author of that review of John Silber's harangue about new buildings at MIT and Harvard thinks about former BU strongman Silber's own fleet of new buildings across the river.
... Is he angry that his 13 million square feet have risked nothing, aspired to nothing and achieved no glory for the institution he led for so long?
He ought to be.
Via Geoff Edgers.
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Comments
No, BU does not suck. You
No, BU does not suck. You want a building that "aspired to something?" Boston City Hall aspired to something. How did that work out. This guy responds to Silber because he is exactly the kind of knucklehead that Silber called out. Read the book - Silber actually knows his architecture.
Aspiring for something is bad?
So no new building should "aspire" to be anything? Sounds like the South Boston Waterfront developers agree with you. Yup, that's how world class skylines are built... by conforming.
Regardless of the merits of
Regardless of the merits of Silber's argument, that is one awful review. More like a rant, actually.
One reason BU erects functional buildings with limited flair is that the school doesn't have a bottomless endowment fund.
And what do we find a stone's throw from the School of Management? The aspiring La Sagrada Familia of bus stations. There's something to be said for timeliness.
The House that Jack Built
(That's the name the building has been given by some MIT folks.)
While it might be interesting architecturally, it's a minefield to deal with from the inside. The gutters over the underground garage opening fill up with ice and overflow, leaving a thick patch of ice right at the bottom of the ramp where you need to gun it to get up onto the street, and the ground floor area is a mix of campus based services and they all seem to be shortchanged due to the layout.
But, as I understand it, one of the things Gehry was attempting to do was to give each classroom or common space within the building exposure to natural light regardless of its actual location. Thus you will see windows which appear from the outside to make no sense to actually be at interesting locations within the rooms.
what is BU's very ugly pike building
When you take the Pike into Boston, you go through the toll and you have your last high vantage point for a nice view of the skyline, but BU's terrible building takes 20-30% of your view.
Silber likes modern architecture, but he has a problem, in that form never really followed function. Modernism would never have been accepted as institutional architecture if it wasn't the option for maximizing interior space with the cheapest materials.
I agree with him though that the new stuff can be just plain silly.
School of Law
The only really ugly building on BU's campus is the School of Law cement tower on the river.
It was built in the early 60's, so I'm guessing you'd have to talk to Harold Case about that one.
The buildings (Metcalf and School of Management) built during Silber's reign are pretty decent. Although, if you've ever been up to the top floor of the Management School to see the Trustees area (including Silber's personal apartment for while he was Chancellor), the decor is really impressive.
I read a better review on his book and have actually recommended it to a few architect friends of mine and they said they'd already heard about it and expect it to be a decent read.
The School of Law
The School of Law is not an ugly building--it is a misunderstood building. In fact, it is BU's greatest contribution to Boston and one of, it not the best, brutalist building ever built.
I think City Hall gets the
I think City Hall gets the award (literally) for the best brutalist effort. The BU law school is just blah.
The problem with brutalist architecture is that it is something that only architects can get all emotional about. The rest of us really don't care about how ugly you can make a building without it being objectively ugly. They should have gone the Northeastern (represent!) route with their buildings.
While I haven't read the
While I haven't read the book, I heard Silber speak about it at the Harvard Coop and he made a lot of sense. He's got no problem with innovation or creativity -- as a (former) university president, what he wants above is all is for buildings to be functional and cost-effective. As far as I know, BU hasn't filed any lawsuits for dangerous leaks and cracks in the buildings constructed during his tenure -- and the university did it all with a much smaller endowment than MIT.
As a BU student, I would agree with Kaz that the only real eyesore on campus is the Law building, and Silber had nothing to do with it. I think it's ridiculous for this reviewer to say the School of Management "could readily be mistaken for a maximum-security prison," and I don't see his rationale for calling the Student Village complex "bloated and banal."
Silber had his faults in his time at BU, but architectural choices were not among them.
what's wrong with the School of Management building?
I've occasionally gone to events there. The building didn't dazzle me but seemed quite functional and pleasant.
wow that sounds
wow that sounds thrilling.... University of Holiday Inn. I didn't go to business school, but I did/do go to design school, and there is much to be said for doing so in an engaging, dynamic, challenging environment. Of the universities I've studied at, taught in, or visited the best are challenging their students to address their studies and research in the way these maligned architects approach their practice. And its not just design... who wants a writer, computer programmer, or cancer researcher to mine the status quo and not diverge from the well traveled path? Maybe BU doesn't expect much of its Management School students, or maybe it does, but putting them in a banal environment certainly doesn't set a very high bar for them.
Just dumb
If I wanted my environment to be "challenging", I'd work and study on the back of a roller coaster (please, don't get any design ideas...).
I want my building to be functional. I want A/C to reach all parts of the room without freezing some places and boiling in others. I want easily located restrooms, regardless as to whether I've been on that floor before or not, and yet I also want them to be subtle, not bottling up their odors inside or, worse, spreading them around the building. I want walls I can use common furniture within and not angled garishly as to require so much custom gear that I can't easily replace anything that might break. I also want to enter my building without always staring skyward for falling deathsicles for the 6 months of winter.
Leave the "challenging" environments for the fun houses. Leave me just fully functional space that lets me focus on my WORK and not the building around me 24/7.
Your taxes at work
I'm generally in favor of the kind of adventuresome architecture that MIT has built in the last few years, but it troubles me that our tax dollars subsidize the adventures of the rich (and getting richer) institutions like MIT.
Do our tax dollars really
Do our tax dollars really subsidize development projects at MIT? Can you cite this?
The school of Management is
The school of Management is well designed. The atrium was created to feel like a beehive, in that theres always a small buzzing of conversation but never overwhelming work, and visitors can see students and faculty interacting at all levels.
The materials look as new now as they did when the building was opened. The wood is still polished and the marble sleek.
The bathrooms are easy to find, and theres alot of light.
Its also the first (and only) environmentally friendly building on campus, in that lights operate with sensors to turn off when not needed.
I dont like the outside as much from afar, but when walking by it creates a nice street scape.
he can bash Warren Towers, the school of law, and the science buildings, but the school of management is one of the architectural highlights on campus.
The stata center is
The stata center is absolutely hideous. The lunch food trucks kick ass however. I miss them dearly.