I went to the University of Utah for my undergrad degree. Smack dab in the middle of campus is a looming Brutalist monstrosity in the form of the BEHS Building [0]. Students often joke that there must be some sort of horrific psychology experiments happening behind those "barred" window frames. One problem withe the U of U's architecture is that it is incoherent, a mish-mash of buildings made to whatever style seemed like a good idea at the time.

In contrast, Purdue University (where I am doing grad school) has done a great job of keeping most of the buildings as a coherent whole. There are design variations from the older Purdue Student Union [1] to the more experimental Armstrong Engineering Building [2], but the general theme of brickwork makes things generally fit together and connects the whole campus to its "1800s Midwestern college" roots. It's a pleasant place to be and I think the architecture contributes to a sense of community.

The author of the article is I think extremely misguided in his arguments. He seems to imply that older architecture forms and traditions have no place in a "forward-looking" "globalized future", as if the local traditions and practices of a space have to all be eroded away into a future of glass/steel boxes in the style of international airports -- as if novelty for its own sake should be the main guiding practice.

>It is worth pointing out that in those same years the university was not only choosing to abandon its historicist architecture; it was also working actively, if belatedly, to renounce the quotas that had long limited the enrollment of diverse groups — Jews, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos — and beginning the deliberations that would lead to coeducation.

This line of argument is uncharitable at best; it implies that historical architecture is somehow permanently stained by bad practices done during that time period. It's the same sort of hand-wringing arguments you see about how games like "Cuphead" that use an old-timey animation style are "unsettling" because some actual old-timey animations would be considered racist in our time [3]. I'd much rather live in a world where we can take the good from the past and carry it forward, rather than seek to reinvent ourselves entirely from the last generation.

Traditional architecture is a bit of a pet issue of mine, mostly because of its public nature. I'm all for experimentation and breaking the mold in most art forms, but architecture is inherently public -- you can't easily look away from a building that's an eyesore than you could a painting. For that reason I tend to think that architecture should favor more traditional/conservative forms.

There's an interesting irony about the article, in complaining that this push for traditional architecture in colleges is being pushed by a wealthy plutocratic elite. These old styles are being pushed for because the donors like them, because they contribute to a general sense of charm and nostalgia that keeps a community cohesive. People in general have a positive attitude toward more traditional forms. If anything, it's a different sort of elite -- modern architects -- who are attempting to impose something on these campuses for the sake of their own experimentation.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Behs_uni... http://protophoto.com/images/modelun/DSC_5605.JPG

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Purdue_S...

[2] https://abm-website-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/labdesignnews.co...

[3] https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-spe...