45

ure. Each room--there are 172 square feet per person per room--is irregularly shaped. Most of the rooms are singles. The interior irregularity creates an similar exterior.

The walls are a newly designed type of masonry.
Eero calls it a "technological wall not a handicraft wall"
which is what most masonry walls used to be. He devel-
oped it because of what he felt was a lack of masons.
This wall can be built by anyone. Regular forms are
used, as in reinforced concrete construction. However
the first step is to put three to eight inch stone in
the forms. Then the special mortar is poured in. Be-
fore the mortar has hardened, the forms are removed.
The wall is then subjected to 100 pounds of water press-
ure, which removes some of the mortar, thus exposing the
stone.

In character and texture these walls
will resemble the walls of old Penn-
sylvania houses.⁴

Several things impressed me about these buildings.
The beige color of the wall contrasted beautifully with
the rich green grass in the numerous courtyards. It
looked to me similar to his father's use of courtyards
in the Cranbrook buildings. Critics have said that
the design of the buildings and the use of open spaces
around them was "not unlike an Italian hill-town street."

5

There is a high tower for each college which serves, as with Yale's other colleges, as a central element. The main structures form an arc and Saarinen planned it to be extended for another college. There are numerous concrete sculptures in the court areas. They are by Nivola and are made of the same mortar as the walls. He also designed some exquisite little outdoor lighting fixtures. They protrude from the wall and are quite decorative. Saarinen had hoped to create an atmosphere with the sculpture and, although they are very abstract, he did.

Henry-Russell Hitchcock has said that Saarinen's "most mature and accomplished buildings are at Yale."

Part of his judgment is based on the fact that "Saarinen ... gave much thought to the visual context" of his buildings. Thus he took a long look at the Payne Gymnasium, which is behind the colleges, before making his final design.

Saarinen was very interested in college architecture and campus planning.

> Architecture on a campus should be beautiful as well as functional and should express its time as well as its function.

At Yale he succeeded.

its beauty is the question of its being functional.
Here again it is a success. "Functionally, say its users,
the rink is superb." In 1959, when it was completed,
Saarinen thought it was one of his best buildings. He
says

...it strengthened my convictions about making everything part of the same 'form-world' and gave us confidence about handling vaults and suspended roofs.... It influenced both TWA and the Washington airport. I think that the critics have tended to underestimate the hockey rink.³

## EZRA STILES COLLEGE/MORSE COLLEGE

These two colleges are actually dormitories, but based on the English system, as are all Yale's housing facilities. Each contains a resident "master" in his own quarters, eating facilities, both informal and formal, and a library. They cost $6,000,000.

Before commencing the designing of these buildings, Saarinen studied the habits of the students. He also determined their likes and dislikes. It was on this basis that he did the design. The students preferred Gothic over Georgian architecture. They wanted individualism in their rooms. They also wanted the stress placed on the student, rather than the university.

Thus he created what he calls "polygonal" architect-