Designing outside the lines
By Tamara Dunn
Perspectives Editor

When the university was moved to Winston-Salem in the 1950s, architects were in competition to design and plan the new campus. Modern architects were also included in the race, but they lost to those who wanted to transport the design of the old campus to the new location.

To react to this “backwards” turn in design, architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright singled out the university as an advocate of the past and unwilling to try something new. Today, the campus is a mixture of architecture from the past with elements of modern and post-modern movements.

The university is an unusual mixture of architectural styles. In the Quad and Magnolia Quad, examples of Georgian design in red brick surround the open areas and appear to be uniform iin almost every feature. It is like a gigantic mirror is reflecting each of their images as the design is repeated building after building without variation based on the structure’s function. As the campus expands across athletic fields and natural space, buildings that break the mold of the Georgian style creep along the edges, adding a punch to the campus landscape while not taking away from the older buildings. They are products of modern architecture bracing the ideas of the 20th century movement against ornamentation from the exterior and a determined effort to keep the essentials of a building the most important characteristic of the finished product.

The area where many of these buildings are located is affectionately called by some members of the faculty and staff “the Boot,” a part of the university that wraps itself around the outer edges of the campus. Three buildings that are connected to the changing face of architecture on the Boot are the Scales Fine Arts Building, the Worrell Professional Building and Polo Residence Hall. These buildings have been added to the campus within the last 30 years, providing a contrast to the classroom buildings and dormitories featuring designs imported from the old campus. However, these newer building do not distract from the united form of a college setting; instead, they add a more visual dimension to the whole by breaking the Georgian pattern.

Sophomore David Willhoit has studied the planning behind the campus and how it is related to the decisions made on how to construct and place new buildings. Willhoit has noticed the connections between old and new buildings. “The new buildings do a nice job of integrating with the older Georgian building because they exhibit congruent exterior features,” Willhoit said. “The reddish orange brick remains the same with grilled windows, limestone or concrete columns and friezes, molding and overall symmetry.” Employing common materials within the buildings’ exteriors maintain harmony amongst them. Although the newer buildings are spaciously further away from the heart of campus, the materials and architectural accents unite the buildings together.

The Scales Fine Arts Center, completed in 1976, was designed by the Texas architectural firm CRS. Scales is the largest building on campus, but its nestled position on a declining field and spacious plan eliminates the feeling of magnitude. What is most striking about the building is its shapes that are employed in the design. From the triangular roofs that shelter the art history professors’ offices to the rectangular tunnel that contains sound booths and hallways for the music department, geometry plays a role in the building layout. The designers also tried to acknowledge the local scenery by including a jagged roof of skylights that echoes the distinctive style of the Sawtooth Center in downtown Winston-Salem.

Robert Knott, a professor of art history, remembers how the construction of the building provided a refreshingly new workspace. “When I first came, the art building was just under construction,” Knott said. “Personally I think it is an exciting and energetic design with wonderful shapes that respond in different ways to different light conditions throughout the year.” Not only does the exterior use positive and negative space to create the illusion of a less massive building, the interior also uses shapes that allow people to freely walk and socialize through it.

The use of geometric forms can be used to show how Scales is separate from the buildings on the Quad, but the building suits its purpose: to be the central place for classes and productions in the visual and performance arts. “Being the Fine Arts Center, many embrace the more contemporary design a little more than if it had merely been another building of classrooms,” Willhoit said.
At the opposite end of the campus is the Worrell Professional Center stands. From the road, the building looks like a solid cube accented by t-shaped windows. From the inside of its courtyard, more shapes and dimensions can be seen. Entranceways contain hidden openings of glass and stone, rotundas and tall columns support the outside floors, and classrooms repeat curves and ellipses in furniture and planning. Post-modernist architect Cesar Pelli designed the building that was completed in 1993. Pelli is a widely recognized architect for his works at other universities, resorts and commercial structures such as the Wachovia Building in downtown Winston-Salem. The building contains both the School of Law and the Babcock Graduate School of Management. Although the schools share the same building, the design stresses their dissimilarities by providing differently planned entrances featuring contrasting shapes to mark their side of the building. While comparing this building to the Georgian architecture in the Quad, the difference between a classroom building within a system of schools and a building that is just the school is evident. The Worrell Center features the characteristics of similar buildings in a central location. Similar to Scales, the center’s size is downplayed by location. By not being placed beside the other classroom buildings, its dimensions and inclusive nature are disguised. The overall design is different from the buildings in the heart of campus, but the center does not seem out of place as it also uses bricks as building materials.

As the outlying areas have expanded the campus, the Magnolia Quad has also seen new buildings arise. The Benson University Center and Greene Hall were both constructed within the last 10 years. Though the façade of these two buildings are in keeping with the traditional campus style, their interior designs give the structures a modern air. Benson uses a rotunda and modernly designed furniture to provide an accommodating contemporary look inside while projecting a classical look outside.

Greene Hall features a foyer surrounded by balconies from higher floors. Iron and glass in geometric figures are entwined in the windows and balconies as the spacious foyer branches into stairways and exits.

As for the future of new buildings on the campus and what they will adapt, designers and planners can learn from the currect layout of the buildings throughout the area. Any construction on the Quad or Mag Quad will adhere to the Georgian design of past years. “What is being done is that the center or core is being preserved and allowed to remain the way it was planned,” Willhoit said. “The new buildings are therefore filling in the space around that core.” As for hope of increasing the variety of architecture with the use of modern and post-modern design, it is not likely that more buildings like Scales and Worrell will be added. “With all the building that has occurred, everything is back to the ersatz Georgian,” Knott said.