2. The Origins of the 60's Building Boom
Traditionalism and Budgets
By the time Goheen took office, Princeton was coming to the end of a prolonged period of fiscal austerity that dated to the Great Depression. In the quarter-century starting in 1933, the University built only four new buildings. With money tight, Harold Dodds had focused on upgrading academic programs; this had the effect of creating a great latent demand for new academic facilities, especially in the sciences. Enrollment had risen by 650 as well, putting severe pressure on Princeton's aging dormitories and threatening the ideal of the "residential University" so cherished by Presidents Hibben and Dodds.
But by the mid-1950s Princeton could again afford to contemplate an ambitious construction program. America's increasing post-war affluence meant that the University could again set -- and achieve -- lofty fundraising goals. The $53 million "University Campaign" of 1959 created the funds for campus expansion.
This campaign completed a planning process that began in earnest in 1954, when Douglas Orr was appointed Supervising Architect of the University. Assuming the funds could be raised to pay for new construction, Orr and the Princeton administration faced two major challenges: where to locate all the new buildings that were needed, and what architectural style in which to build them.
As envisioned in a long-range master plan from this period; the siting problem was the easier of the two to solve. The campus would expand to the south, encroaching on the athletic fields and tennis courts that lay below Patton, Walker, Guyot, and Eno Halls. It would also grow to the east, along William Street. And selective additions would be made in the core of the main campus, particularly in the large open space between Prospect House and 1879 Hall.
Deciding on an appropriate architectural style proved more problematic. In 1956, the Princeton Alumni Weekly ran a long feature entitled "After Gothic, What?" that included photographs and descriptions of some of the modern buildings then under construction at Harvard, Yale, and MIT. Unlike Princeton, which had since 1896 endeavored to have all of its buildings harmonize in a similar style, Harvard and Yale were erecting structures that boldly contrasted with their neighbors. With the traditional Collegiate Gothic style of the campus no longer practical, Princeton faced a difficult decision about what style would replace it.
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The E Quad
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Anxious to ensure stylistic conformity at minimum cost, the University directed the first big commissions of the period to trusted insiders -- Voorhees '00 for the E-Quad...
The New Quad
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...and Lester Smith '30 for the dormitory/dining hall complex of New Quad.
As a result, these structures were compromised from the start. An amalgam of modern principles of design mixed with historical references to the gothic campus, such as the use of limestone trim around windows, these buildings never carved out an identity of their own. Neither modern nor traditional, they failed in trying too hard to bridge the gap between the two.
Undergraduates and alumni alike protested a perceived decline in aesthetic standards, with some even creating the "Poor Princeton Society" in 1961. (Robert Venturi '47, GS'50, the noted architect, was a member of this group.) "Gothic was gone, but its replacement, a weak set of reminiscent compromises, was worse, however much it tried to be all things to all men," the Society declared. This group also decried Princeton's failure to "develop strong convictions for its new buildings."
The New Quad - Vintage CAD
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But these protestations came too late to affect the building program of the "University Campaign." By 1960, Princeton had an enormous number of structures in the pipeline: the five dorms, Gauss, Dodge-Osborn, 1937, 1938,1939 and the dining hall,Wilcox, that comprised New Quad (now Wilson College), ...
Grad College Dormitories
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...new dorms at the Graduate College, ...
Faculty Appartments
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Caldwell Field House
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...a new cage and fieldhouse, Caldwell Fieldhouse, ...
The Engineering Quadrangle
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...the Engineering Quadrangle, ...
School of Architecture
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...the School of Architecture, ...
Woolworth Center of Musical Studies
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...a music building, Woolworth, ...
Art Museum
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...a major expansion of the Art Museum, ...
Firestone Library Addition
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...and an addition to Firestone Library.
Over the next decade, all of these would be built --exceptional for such an ambitious long-range master plan. (Indeed, the only structure planned but not erected was a proposed music auditorium to be located on Ivy Lane, behind Cap & Gown Club and Cottage Club.) From an architectural perspective, however, the enormous scale of the master plan necessarily diminished the quality of the individual buildings, none of which is particularly distinguished.
In the end, the University finessed this decision. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Minoru Yamasaki's bright white Woodrow Wilson School building, during the 1960s Princeton commissioned an uninspiring series of functional modern structures built of various shades of brick. The new buildings were conventional, cautious, and designed to complement rather than compete with their Collegiate Gothic neighbors.
The position of the trustees who mandated this conservative approach to campus expansion is understandable. By the late 1950s, after all, the campus had not changed materially in 30 years, and to most members of the board, the identity of Princeton was indelibly linked to the unchanging gothic campus of Wilson and Hibben. In their view, to experiment with new styles would undermine the architectural cohesion that had been at the center of the University's physical planning since the days of Ralph Adams Cram.
The stubborn traditionalism of the trustees ran directly into unpleasant modern realities of cost and materials. For one, the distinctive local stone used in the old Collegiate Gothic buildings was in short supply, even if skilled masons could have been found to use it. Moreover, in the post-war world there was no way that a private institution such as Princeton could afford the kind of craftsmanship and labor that had gone into the older buildings. The sheer scale of the contemplated expansion also argued for the choice of inexpensive materials and simple designs.