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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Comment on this article Preservationists object to plan for new colleges
Massive demolition of historic buildings is, in its way, a time-honored Yale tradition. That's how the university cleared space for its original residential colleges more than 75 years ago. But that tradition doesn't mean preservationists are pleased with the plan to level three city blocks—including four structures on the New Haven Historic Resources Inventory—to make way for a pair of new colleges. "I find it very shocking that the total demolition of a giant site like this is still thought of as the way to proceed," says Anstress Farwell '78MA, president of the New Haven Urban Design League. Noting the environmental cost of demolishing more than 200,000 square feet of usable buildings, New Haven Preservation Trust president Pedro Soto adds: "Yale's trying to burnish its green credentials. For Yale, with its vast resources, to say, 'We just can't figure out anything but demolition'—it's an interesting thing to hear." The university announced its intention more than a year ago to expand Yale College with two as-yet-unnamed residential colleges. Looking at the triangular site—wedged between Prospect Street, Sachem Street, and the Farmington Canal trail, behind the Grove Street Cemetery—it was obvious some demolition would be required. But not until project architect Robert A. M. Stern '65MArch unveiled plans during last month's reunions did it become clear that his design calls for tearing down all 12 existing buildings. Demolition had been expected for Hammond Hall, with its brick-and-limestone facade; the political science department's Brewster Hall; and Donaldson Commons, the School of Management dining hall. Now Seeley G. Mudd Library, finished in 1982, is also on the list. Stern's design is neo-Gothic, very much in the style of the residential colleges and other campus buildings designed by James Gamble Rogers from the 1910s to the 1930s. To house some 800 students without clearing the site, "we couldn't have big courtyards" or a broad walkway between the colleges, Stern explains. "We'd have to build big towers, which are what very many universities have as dormitories, but which are nothing like residential colleges." Of the planned demolition, he says: "Of course it's a little sad. But it can't be helped." Soto sounds sadder than that, but nearly as resigned. "Unless we stand in front of the bulldozers, ultimately I think Yale will see this through," he says. Soto had hoped Yale would find a way to incorporate the two biggest buildings, Mudd library and Hammond Hall, and move some of the smaller buildings, such as an early-nineteenth-century Greek Revival house at 88 Prospect Street and the nineteenth-century Daniel Cady Eaton House, across Sachem Street from Ingalls Rink. But moving buildings, at a cost of around $5 million apiece, is not in the cards, says Michael Morand '87, '93MDiv, Yale's associate vice president for New Haven and state affairs. But Soto hopes to persuade Yale to salvage and recycle as much of the existing buildings as possible—a goal Morand says the university will pursue. The planned demolition may not stir preservationists as much as previous Yale battles, because the site contains no National Historic Landmarks or other obvious rallying points. Farwell and Soto acknowledge that there's no consensus on what the preservation priorities should be. But while Soto considers the existing buildings a "lost cause," Farwell is not ready to concede. She says she jokingly told Morand, "the facade of Hammond Hall and the library will cause me to go to war." More seriously, she questions the wisdom of emulating the neo-Gothic architecture of Yale's
central campus. Calling it "a fantasy environment
about what Yale has been in the past," Farwell
says, "I don't think that if the university
succeeds in this plan, the debate will ever go
away: why did Yale do something retardataire at a
moment when architecture is looking to be
innovative?"
What shall we call the style of the proposed two new residential colleges -- Legos-Gothic? So an exhausted architectural idiom is be rolled out again since "Georgian is not as central to our DNA as Gothic." Um, wouldn't Yale architectural DNA be encoded in Connecticut Hall? And to accomplish this, historical and otherwise handsome, useful buildings are to be razed to clear the site. Oh, just like 1950s-1970s knock 'em down, doze 'em out Urban Renewal. That worked out well, as we know. Maybe this buttress just shouldn't fly.
Forward thinking Although Stern's design for the Prospect Street facade of South College between the two towers is a bit too regular for the gothic idiom (see "New Colleges Aim to Match the Old"), in general the design would be a magnificent addition to Yale's ensemble of gothic buildings, one that is unmatched anywhere outside of Oxbridge. If the preservationists had had their way eighty years ago, James Gamble Rogers would never have done his work and we'd still be looking at the Berkeley Oval.
The egos of starchitects The planned destruction of several existing old buildings to build the planned residential colleges along Prospect Street is just the latest act of civic vandalism made "necessary" by a lack of imagination among the architectural elite, and that elite's addiction to grandiose signature projects. I should like to circulate among the alumni pictures of these lovely structures along with all the buildings Yale has destroyed over the years and see what they think about this latest bulldozing scheme. I certainly agree that gothic architecture is in Yale's DNA (see "New Colleges Aim to Match the Old") but what really makes the campus so delightful is the variety of styles from different periods exemplified by precisely those buildings Mr. Stern and his band plan to destroy. "It can't be helped" only if the decision is made that these buildings are worthless and that preservation of useful, attractive, and historic buildings that have managed to survive so long is always a lesser consideration than the egos of starchitects and the convenience of a clean slate. A few blocks away are an ugly parking lot and the Pierson Sage garage. Why aren't the colleges being located there? Here's another idea: why not find an architect who can create two new colleges by incorporating the existing buildings into a little campus village? I realize adaptive re-use isn't sexy, but it would cost less and probably be a lot more interesting. But that would involve sacrificing some artistic ego. New England has the oldest buildings in the United States. In the twenty-first century there is no excuse for tearing down a single early nineteenth-century frame house. How many have already been lost in the mindless building frenzy of the past two decades?
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