Student floods are constantly entering and leaving buildings on the pace campus, pedestrian traffic and flow like a current. The students meander through the halls and classrooms, without the second thought when the architecture withstands the horde.
The residents of the Tempe campus are extended year after year and forget the everyday, everyday moments that have driven their college career. But the buildings don't forget. They keep these moments until they can no longer, and then they are subjected to remodels that enable them to continue their legacy of the campus. They keep the story and develop over time.
Temp was a local country of O'odham, Piipaash and their ancestors, and it was mainly the desert landscape before the foundation of ASU. Since then, the campus has slowly developed into a selection of architectural styles. The campus from the old Main to Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health is a shop window made of clean concrete lines and complicated masonry.
A history lesson through architecture
Kathleen Lamp, Associate Professor in the Department of English, which has specialist knowledge in material culture, said ASU has several architectural styles on the campus. She called Old Main, Durham Hall and West Hall and pointed out her pronounced and divergent architectural styles and looks.
“(The architecture) is really mixed – you see it when you move through the different areas of the campus,” said Lamp.
Old Main, the oldest building in ASU, was built in 1898 in the architectural style of Victorian Queen Anne with Richardsonian Romananisque Touches. The Queen Anne style is known for its corner towers and complicated masonry, while the Romanesque style in Richardson from Italian, French and Spanish Romanesque styles dates from the 11th and 12th centuries.
Named after G. Homer Durham, the President of the University from 1960 to 1969, Durham Hall was built in 1964. It was rebuilt in 2019 and the project lasted three years and cost 65 million US dollars. The building became a center for language and cultural studies at the university.
“Durham does a really good job for the size of the building that does not overwhelm the old Main, and it is not excessively different,” said Renée Cheng, Dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
“You don't see that the language is repeated. You can see that the color of the material is supported. You have a good job with the … window rhythms and things.
West Hall is neither historical, such as old Main nor modernist like Durham's renovation work. The two -story brick building, built in 1936, is modest. Originally a girls' dormitory, the outstanding architectural feature of the building is its curved white vertical columns, which are connected to the neoclassical style.
Lamp said the Walton Center was the epitome of ASU's modern architectural style. The scalis -like facade of the building causes an imaginary imagination and contrasts its strong base, which is supported by stable cylindrical columns. Its structure was inspired by a geode.
The rich history of the university is told by the varied architectural styles of the campus, and they complement each other well, said Lamp.
“It will be more coherent if you manufacture more buildings,” she said.
Cheng said the diverse architecture showed a core value of the ASU charta.
“ASU is open and ready to change as an institution, and you can see that you are reflected in the buildings. The older buildings are often preserved, often with this type of history, but then you also have brand new buildings next to you. You are in a very direct dialogue, but you just coexist,” she said.
“(The Tempe Campus) is quite versatile in a really beautiful way,” added Cheng. “There is a wide range of buildings from different eras. There is a certain uniformity on the (campus). I think the landscape architecture is probably the stronger language than building architecture.”
The desert landscape and the architecture of the ASU
According to Lamp, the advances of the university in the direction of environmental and sustainability efforts have influenced newer architecture on campus.
“They are increasingly seeing an architecture that thinks about (like) ASU in the desert and (integrated) sustainability (and) energy efficiency,” she said. “In many ways, you see more a hug of our situation.”
Mayte Banuelos, a study architecture, said that the Walton Center was a great example of landscape-based architecture. The building of the building contributes to its heat -resistant properties and helps the passers -by to avoid the brutality of Arizona's weather.
“One of the main architects (the building) to imitate the Saguaro cactus combat – their combs on the south side are deeper because the sun is moving,” said Banuelos. “Well, it's better. It offers shadows in itself.”
Support student journalism and donate it to State Press today.