U of M campus named one of the ugliest in the nation

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OK, now Travel & Leisure has come out with their most beautiful campuses, and guess what? UW-Madison made the list.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
OK, now Travel & Leisure has come out with their most beautiful campuses, and guess what? UW-Madison made the list.
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I've been down there several times with friends that went there. It's hard to argue with sitting on the Memorial Union terrace on a beautiful fall/spring/summer night and drinking beer overlooking the lake with live music playing. I've certainly seen much worse places to be in this world.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
While I love Coffman, one of the most unfortunate parts of campus is that it does indeed turn its back on the river. Lots of great buildings to look at (if you like Gehry, the Weisman is there, Coffman is cool, etc). And the river flats are very peaceful - great for sporting, a jog, or just reading while on the steps behind Coffman. But the parking ramps and larger institutional buildings (hospital stuff) that separates campus from the river is a bummer. You have to go out of your way to get there. By contrast, Wisconsin's student union (the main one, not the newer POS by the stadium) sits right on the big patio against the lake, with multiple buildings also fronting it. I'd give up the green space in a heartbeat if we had the atmosphere UW does along the waterfront in the fall/spring. Imagine if Gilbert's plan was mostly implemented with 4-5 buildings (including dorms) built down on the river banks with great walking paths and patios separating them from the water? Would be awesome.

That said, not a fan of what that northern bridge would mean for car traffic cutting between Northrop and the Mall. One of my favorite things about the UMN East Bank is that it has Washington and 4th/University on the N/S boundaries, but everything in-between is more or less pedestrian zone. Where there are streets, people feel comfortable walking in them. It's quiet. The ped mall on Washington will help this even more.
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President Yudof had a huge print of Gilbert's plan in his office. I wonder, had he stuck around for long enough, if he would have tried to start a process to re-realize it. I still wonder what possessed the university to abandon this concept - to cap the mall with the construction of Coffman and forsake having one of the more breathtaking public spaces on any campus anywhere. If anyone has the architectural historical insight on that, I'd love to hear it.

One thing that put and continues to put a wrench in ever pursuing this concept is Washington Avenue. I've heard rumors that there were concepts involving having Washington tunnel under the mall, but they were never acted on. I also thought I'd heard where they reconsidered the tunneling idea when the new LRT was being planned, but the cost was prohibitive. Maybe, with the motorized traffic having been removed, the ped plaza / train could be considered compatible with the old vision.
 

I love UofM's campus. Most of it is historic and well-organized. One of the neatest features is how the Knoll, West Bank Mall and East Bank each have their own separate characters. It's 3 campuses in one, and very nice to walk through. (The medical area and athletic buildings and alumni lump are very random and impersonal, though.)

The two big eyesores were Weisman and Peik Hall. Peik Hall should either be removed from the Knoll, or refaced to fit in with the historic buildings.

It was a huge relief when they managed to save Jones and Nicholson from the wrecking ball in the 1990's. My eyes popped out when I heard that might happen.
 

What an absolute load of **** this article
 


it's not a beautiful campus. the problem is that it is a sprawling big ten campus in an urban environment.

it is by no means ugly, though. judging aesthetics is completely subjective. aesthetically, i think the small, liberal arts type campuses are more beautiful than most universities.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
While I love Coffman, one of the most unfortunate parts of campus is that it does indeed turn its back on the river. Lots of great buildings to look at (if you like Gehry, the Weisman is there, Coffman is cool, etc). And the river flats are very peaceful - great for sporting, a jog, or just reading while on the steps behind Coffman. But the parking ramps and larger institutional buildings (hospital stuff) that separates campus from the river is a bummer. You have to go out of your way to get there. By contrast, Wisconsin's student union (the main one, not the newer POS by the stadium) sits right on the big patio against the lake, with multiple buildings also fronting it. I'd give up the green space in a heartbeat if we had the atmosphere UW does along the waterfront in the fall/spring. Imagine if Gilbert's plan was mostly implemented with 4-5 buildings (including dorms) built down on the river banks with great walking paths and patios separating them from the water? Would be awesome.
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Couldn't disagree more. While I get the selling points of buildings on the river, I already hate what they did with the building/parking down there (though I love the tailgating) and would be sick to see them develop it more. Some of the best, if not the absolute best, times of my life were spent down on the flats when I lived in the superblock. I adore the city, but being able to escape down to the wooded trails, sit by the river and enjoy some adult beverages with friends on a fall night was absolute perfection. Also, no better place in the world to experiment with controlled substances.
 

Wow, that's just dumb. The U of M campus isn't a thing of pure aesthetic beauty, but it's very far from ugly, other than the posted-up papers that don so many wooden poles around campus. Was the author's name Myron, by chance?
 

bkrownd said:
I love UofM's campus. Most of it is historic and well-organized. One of the neatest features is how the Knoll, West Bank Mall and East Bank each have their own separate characters. It's 3 campuses in one, and very nice to walk through. (The medical area and athletic buildings and alumni lump are very random and impersonal, though.)

The two big eyesores were Weisman and Peik Hall. Peik Hall should either be removed from the Knoll, or refaced to fit in with the historic buildings.

It was a huge relief when they managed to save Jones and Nicholson from the wrecking ball in the 1990's. My eyes popped out when I heard that might happen.
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The eyesore was the Science Classroom Building on Washington. That's since gone (right?). And Atherton Hall, where I spent many of my hours, has undergone a needed facelift. If Yudof did one thing right is was to make the campus look pretty darn nice and very "college-like". This article is crap.
 



Science Classroom Building wasn't really visible from anywhere that mattered, though. I actually had a soft spot for that building because I spent so much time in it as an undergrad, and loved the study space on the "top" floor. I also liked the boardwalks. I haven't seen the building that replaced it yet.
 

The Medical Center is an ugly brutalist eyesore which no doubt helped drag it down.
 

The Old Campus Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Northrop Mall is beautiful. I love our urban campus. I don't get the sprawling comment as I don't think the campus is really that big.

Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

bkrownd said:
Science Classroom Building wasn't really visible from anywhere that mattered, though. I actually had a soft spot for that building because I spent so much time in it as an undergrad, and loved the study space on the "top" floor. I also liked the boardwalks. I haven't seen the building that replaced it yet.
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It was open way late, and not only allowed smoking, but sold cigarettes. I long ago quit, but in the day, coffee and cig machines made my degree possible.
 



goldengophers said:
The Medical Center is an ugly brutalist eyesore which no doubt helped drag it down.
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Do you mean Moos? I like Moos. :D I'm a fan of more imaginative brutalist interiors like Rarig and Lakewood/Century College, but Moos is more of a plain 1970's modern style. The heavy traffic and parking ramp on Washington Ave in front of Moos on Washington Ave really detract from the building, though.

I always used the tunnels and underground level of Moos on my morning walk into the university in the winter. Those big wide hallways are a really nice pedestrian space, like an underground street.
 

Articles and lists like this are purposely controversial and only serve to drive traffic to sites for advertising revenue. When the methodology includes reading comments from an anonymous message board for prospective college students, there is no real effort made to create a list based on defensible criteria. Had they demonstrated a rubric with items such as number of historical or notable buildings, shared architectural style among buildings, open green space, adherence to a master plan, and perhaps a points subtraction for number of eyesore buildings, then it would have been worth discussing.

I guarantee that the authors of this article have never stepped foot on most, or perhaps any, of these campuses. They used Google Image Search, and for UofM, the first thing that appears is Coffman. No offense, but it's a pretty horrible student union as far as student unions at major universities go.

On the flip side, the article listing UofM as the number 50 most beautiful campus lists Texas A&M at 44. While we have many beautiful areas of campus, we also have many of the architectural styles that would have made the worst list. You just don't see those on Google Image Search. It's sloppy journalism by someone who ran out of serious story ideas and was facing a deadline.
 

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