Quote:
Originally Posted by photoLith
Carnegie Mellon is quite the ugly campus, the problem is the lack of good gardening and a horrendous Brutalist crap building that dominates the central lawn. Some of the individual buildings are very beautiful but overall the campus feels mismatched. The central lawn or whatever its called looks like the National Mall in the sense that its falling apart, half the grass is dead. I think they need to tear down that POS of brutal building and improve the grounds of the university, than it would be gorgeous. University of Pittsburgh however around The Cathedral of Learning is one of the most incredible campuses Ive ever walked around. To see a beautifully designed and well connected university, one does not have to look much further than Rice University in Houston. Carnegie Mellon with some careful planning could easily be as beautiful as Rice.
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No doubt that Rice has a beautiful campus. A little too formal for me but I can see why so many people find it attractive. It also seems less urban than CMU's campus, and---as someone else articulated---it is CMU's presence within such a cramped environment that gives the campus a lot of its impact. That, along with the beautiful original Hornbostel buildings, a bit of daring architecture (Gates Center) and other recent construction which might be less daring and more contextural but still, to me at least, succeeds (Tepper School). I think this campus will be spectacular in the coming decades.
I am not endorsing the dead grass on the campus. I understand that CMU's Mall has a drainage issue that has wreaked havoc on the grass there and also killed all the trees that used to line the northern sidewalk of the Mall. That issue is addressed in the current master plan and new grass/trees will be planted. That said, I like campuses where the students can actually walk on the grass...and sometimes create paths in the grass. That is probably heresy to some campus purists but I prefer lived in...
Re someone else's comments on the University Center: It must be tough for a building this large (relative to the others on the campus) to fit in properly. I guess the school needed to accomplish a lot in one building. It is too big, but it is contextual and I appreciate it's Horbostel-ian touches.
An aside: I, too, am not fond of Wean Hall, your "Brutalist POS." I doubt it will be torn down. Take some comfort that its visual impact will be lessened once the drainage issue is resolved and trees are replanted in front of it. Brings to mind Frank Lloyd Wright's comment when a Notre Dame priest asked for Wright's opinion of the school's newly-built O'Shaughnessy Hall: Plant ivy and pray for rain.
Agreed that the grounds surrounding the Cathedral of Learning are impressive. Too bad that this is but a small portion of the university's campus---Pitt has more than its share of clunkers. If you hate Wean Hall, then Pitt's Library Sciences Building or most anything in the Forbes Quadrangle at Pitt should be equally hated. The new dorm, however, turned out well. Let's hope this is a trend.
Anyone know if Pitt creates 10 year master plans for campus development? I don't recall ever hearing about one. I wonder if they are more discreet as to their intentions since there are so many neighbors who abhor Pitt's gobbling up the neighborhood.
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