(history continued)
When Concordia Senior College was in the planning stage during the early1950s, it was recognized that exposure to good design was one of the significant opportunities to materially strengthen the students' college contacts with the fine and applied arts. Saarinen was asked to provide specific spaces where students and faculty might be effectively and continuously brought into contact with the educational, spiritual, and aesthetic contributions of the fine arts. There is ample national and ecclesiastical praise for the effectiveness of Saarinen and Kiley's effort to create a college campus, which is, in its own right, a functional work of art. The magnificent mathematical regularity of their designs, the spatial relationships and placements of his buildings, the framed "look throughs" of surpassing scenic beauty, the sweeping meadow vistas, and the little lake combine to create a composite line, color, and balance perspective of exceptional aesthetic satisfaction.
Saarinen wrote: "It is not just an ordinary college, it is in many
ways a world of its own. I picture it as a very closely-knit group of
buildings. We also talked about whether circulation should be interior
or exterior which is really the difference between a high school and a
university, and I am sure they should be exterior. In other words, circulation
of function to function should be outdoors. That is the only way to make
the outdoors count."
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|