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

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

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

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

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.

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

& 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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Original Campus Buildings

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

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

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

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

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

Work Buildings

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

They were spatially organized in a grid pattern

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

or organized in a long assembly line pattern.

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

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

Modernist architecture rejected historical reference.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

Modernism

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Modernist housing projects influence dormitory buildings.

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

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.

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

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

New Dorms

Bio-Science Park

Buildings are independent islands

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

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?