Distinguished Speakers Program - October 27, 2004 - University Club, Knapp Hall Farmingdale State University 90 Years of Campus Architecture A Presentation.

Distinguished Speakers Program - October 27, 2004 - University Club, Knapp Hall

Farmingdale State University90 Years of Campus Architecture

A Presentation By:

Joseph A. BetzAssociate Professor of Architecture

&

Karen GellesReference and Instructional Librarian


Farmingdale’s original campus is based on the 18th Century Arcadian”academical village” inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the University of Virginia.

Original Campus Planning


Thomas Cole’s 1838 Dream of Arcadia creates an ideal image of classical European humanist philosophy set in a vast expanse of an agrarian American landscape.


& 19th Century Beaux Arts architecture with a hierarchical composition, classical language and symmetrical design

Farmingdale’s classical centerpiece in

comparison to the University of Virginia’s



Symmetry was used for two reasons: (a) to organize and order a large architectural program sited on a hundred plus acre parcel.(b) to separate boys from girls and define their place in this Arcadian village. Boys lived in dormitories and girls lived in cottages. Dormitories fostered an industrial culture and cottages a domestic one.



An agricultural program should be based on a scientific and technological paradigm expressed in classical architecture using rational thought versus


the romantic setting of cloistered gothic architecture of Oxford and Yale that were designed to originally train clergy for the ministry.


Thomas Cole’s 1840 The Architect’s Dream shows the conflict and divide between the styles. Classical architecture represents rationalism and ideals of the enlightenment.


Original campus buildings were temples of learning in the classical tradition using Doric and Ionic porticos.

Original Campus Buildings





The work buildings that housed livestock were organized differently. They were based on function, utility and economy.

Work Buildings


They were spatially organized in a grid pattern


or organized in a long assembly line pattern.



Modernist architecture rejected historical reference. It was based on the machine aesthetic. The goal was to free society from the past!

Modernism


Modern Campus Planning

Modernist campus planning also rejected the old hierarchical spatial organization in favor of an egalitarian one.

Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute of Technology is a good example.


A 1947 sketch of Farmingdale’s proposed Modernist campus that abandons the original plan.


The center of campus shown in the 1930’s and 1940’s versus


the center of campus shown in the 1970’s and 1980’s.


Farmingdale’s new modern architectural aesthetic was stripped of any classical reference. It promoted instead an anonymous bureaucratic architecture of function and utility.

Modern Buildings


Engineering and technological innovations in construction provided the rational for many buildings.






Modernist housing projects influence dormitory buildings.


Failure of Modernism Although not as dramatic as the demolition Minoru Yamasaki’s 1950’s award winning Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project in St. Louis, the demolition of Suffolk Hall and Nassau Hall represents the failure of modern architecture on campus.


Recent campus building is occurring at the edges representing a third idea.

New Dorms

Bio-Science Park

Buildings are independent islands


Post-Modernism

Post-Modernism rejects the universal narrative of modernism and instead advocates for a culturally and physically contextual architecture and an inclusive design process.

Is Farmingdale State University moving toward a Post-Modern Architecture and Campus Plan?

Distinguished Speakers Program - October 27, 2004 - University Club, Knapp Hall Farmingdale State University 90 Years of Campus Architecture A Presentation.

Documents

university club

knapp hallsymmetry

knapp hallthey

knapp hallthomas coles

large architectural

classical architecture

classical language

classical tradition