Today
we discussed 4 interesting, but very different buildings: the Main Library,
Smith Hall, the Foreign Language Building, and the Institute for Genomic
Biology. We discussed different aspects at each building that I had never
noticed or thought of before.
We
started our tour at the Main Library. Now we have discussed the Main library as
a piece to the very symmetric puzzle we call our campus, but we hadn’t been
inside to discuss the building individually yet. While the building is very
open in the entrance and has a very grand appearance, I think the best part of
the building is definitely The Stacks. Today was the first time I toured The
Stacks, and they sure didn’t disappoint. One very interested aspect is how the
shelves actually serve as support for the building as well. Just above one “level”
is the mezzanine that is made up completely of concrete blocks that sit
basically on top of the bookshelves of the level below. While I didn’t see any
books of interest to me this trip, the structure definitely made up for it.
Another interesting design deals with the mobile shelves. Although if I want to
use those in the future, I best figure out exactly how they work.
The
next stop was the Foreign Language Building. This building is definitely one
sticks out from the rest of the buildings due to its design, but blends in with
the rest due to its color and location. The first time I noticed it, I saw an
inverted pyramid type structure and was very intrigued by it. Today we discussed
how the building may serve as a compliment to the Tower of Babel, which was
built in an effort to reach God. This building, however, seems to be asking God
into the studies of Foreign Language. While the building has a bunch of wasted
space, the open void that is light up constantly by sunlight again emphasizes this
attempt to bring God into the space. Professor Hinders explanation, while it
may not be the exact reasoning, definitely made sense and offered a new light
on the building.
After
the Foreign Language Building, we walked to the entrance of Smith Hall. This
entrance is located away from the Quad for various reasons. To begin with, the
concert hall in oriented so that the stage is on the Quad side and the seats
are on the public side, offering this sense of student performing for the
public. The entrance then magnifies this as you enter directly into this
concert hall. Also, the entrance would be overshadowed by another building if
it was place anywhere else. As we walked up the stairs, the columns and
doorways served almost as the opposite of a telescope by eventually making the
many varieties and differences of the public seem to be one body through music.
Our
last stop was a building that I had always noticed by the ugly “chewing gum”
statues that sit out front of the building, the IGB. This building definitely
has a different design, but it was built in a way to help preserve the Morrow
Plots. A stipulation of the design of the IGB was that it could not throw any
shade on the Morrow Plots. The IGB fits this stipulation by have the main part
of the building set back away from the plots, and the rest of the building
underground. The main pavilion which sits off the side of the entrance was an
interesting aspect. As your coming from the Quad, this pavilion welcomes you,
however from the South, there is no such “welcome.” Another interesting aspect
was how useless a lot of the building was. For example, the lounge area on the
first floor that we sat in to discuss the building was there for no apparent
reason.
This
trip covered many different topics and many different buildings. However,
afterwards I felt like I understood many different building of campus that I had
before simply ignored.
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