Boulderspace

Part of what makes CU’s architecture unique and award winning is also – for me – what makes it incredibly annoying. The uniformity of the red tile and slate buildings creates a cohesive flow to the campus – an automatic statement of community, perhaps. But on the other hand, everything looks the same, which often results in a distinct inability to find anything. There is a disconnect between the utility of the design and its aesthetic appearance. I have experienced many a panicked moment when a class is unexpectedly changed to a building I’m unfamiliar with and I find myself hopelessly lost in a sea of red tile and slate. (This is, of course, partially my own fault because as a hermetic grad student I didn’t have much cause for venturing outside the few buildings I frequented.)

Many campuses suffer from an inability to stick with a cohesive design plan. I’m thinking of my undergraduate institution in particular, where there were gray stone gothic buildings from the late 19th century, god-awful art deco-ish buildings and an enormous Romanesque chapel. This seemingly random collection of architectural design always bugged me as a student because it didn’t feel “pretty,” but I can see now that it reflects the life and history of the campus, despite its choppy feeling. I feel this sense of history is (overall) missing from CU’s campus, despite its prettiness. And what happens when the physical campus, in an attempt to create community, actually ends up alienating those within it – not to mention visitors?

I think this also ends up correlating with city planning and development issues as well, a has already been discussed, in that with all the “development” going on in Boulder, what happens to the sense of community when everything ends up looking and feeling the same (not that this has happened yet, but it is, I suppose, a fear)? Does this create a greater sense of community or is it alienating or both? What effect would that have – or does it currently have, if any, on the tourist industry here?