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I attended Columbia and have visited Harvard and MIT and would say that I much prefer Penn's campus to all three. I think a lot of people have dreamy notions about what college campuses are supposed to look like (lots of bilateral symmetry and the prerequisite Collegiate Gothic or neo fill-in-the-blank style architecture) This stuff looks really nice in brochures and can be seductive when you're passing through on a tour and imagining yourself as a bright young scholar on your way to class in dark-wood paneled classrooms. The reality (for me at least) is that when you live with it on a daily basis, it becomes just plain boring and monotonous. This point was driven home to me recently by a visit to UNC Charlotte's campus. I think that many on this forum would not be too impressed by it. It does, however, have most of the ingredients that you can find at some of the more prestigious colleges that you mentioned. Bilateral symmetry out the wazoo? Check. A lot of brick and stone? Check. Courtyards everywhere? Check. What it doesn't have is the highly intricate ornamentation and patina of age. Yes, it's trying really hard to be like the older campuses, and in the process, it's revealing that this "collegiate" look is kinda shallow. It's nice because it's old and has a lot of ornamentation. It's a one trick pony. Penn is different. It's not constrained by the same ideas/ideals. It feels a lot more like it's part of the city--it interacts with the grid. Does it have some nice, pretty buildings? Sure, but it doesn't beat you over the head with them. That Penn still feels like a campus without this pre-planned hullabaloo, is a testament to its character and quality, in my opinion. In short, you're wrong. |
Brutalism isn't everyone's cup of tea understandably but it's not to be written off. I attended Arcadia which is a "cute" campus, very small but nice. Our most awarded building was a hulking brutalist mass but continues to receive rave reviews decades later... And we have a damn Castle on campus
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Penn certainly has many unique locales on campus with a distinct "sense of place." Locust Walk, the Quad, Franklin Field and The Palestra, Highrise field, Biege Block and fraternity houses, Penn Park, HUP and CHOP complex, etc. are all very different spaces, and the campus in its entirely doesn't really have a unifying theme. I think this makes it more urban and authentic actually. It amazes me how well Penn is integrated into the city fabric. And I'll admit that some buildings certainly leave something to be desired, I think overall the architecture of Penn is actually very interesting and generally well-designed. Even the Brutalism on campus isn't so bad, like Van Pelt library, which I actually like a lot. The modern "high rises in fields" fad ala "The Highrises" at Penn I find pretty interesting actually. A college campus is really the only place where this kind of scheme works well. Penn has one of the best urban campuses in the country, no question, everyone I've ever spoken to loves it.
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Happy to be proven wrong, if you can show us all the beautiful medical campuses elsewhere in America. Do they really exist? |
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Glad you posted this. I was actually thinking of posting something similar, with photos of some of Penn Medicine's peers at the top of national rankings of major academic medical centers, e.g., Mass General in Boston, Columbia Presbyterian in NYC, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Duke in Durham, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Texas Medical Center in Houston, UC San Francisco, UCLA, etc. Do a Google image search of these and you'll quickly get the idea. These places all developed in a hodgepodge, organic fashion over time to support the amazing things that go on INSIDE the buildings, with relatively little regard to how cohesive or lovely the campuses and their buildings look architecturally. And you also make another good point: although ON the Penn campus, the Penn Medicine clinical complex does not DEFINE the Penn campus (just as the other referenced academic medical centers do not define the campuses of their parent institutions). |
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Johns Hopkins is pretty nice.
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http://images.ibsys.com/2012/0326/30764040.jpg Also, this includes the medical school buildings. Penn's medical school also has some nice--and historic--buildings. |
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5/17/16
Can no longer see Penn Tower from here. https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...33&oe=57E15A82 |
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7586/...fabe062a_c.jpg054 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7771/...4a03b069_c.jpg053 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/...172656ce_c.jpg049 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/...eff6b05d_c.jpg047 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7013/...6017a221_c.jpg046 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7424/...842b905d_c.jpg044 by tehshadowbat, on Flickr |
With demolition finishing up, any idea when groundbreaking will be for phase 1 of construction?
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What ever happened to Penn's desire to move the street that runs between the old Penn Tower site and the building that is slowly eating HUP, the one with a half dozen names?
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WE MIGHT BE IN LUCK! Turns out, after a simulated walk-through, the entire floor plate layout and design was scrapped and completely reconfigured! This was presented today.. The picture shows the old floor plate which matches both the old exterior design we all liked and the new exterior design we all loathed. The new floor plate layout would require a new third exterior render we haven't seen yet!
Now I don't know how to use this old technology, let me see if I can post a picture. |
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:D |
Panel OKs plans for new Penn hospital building
http://www.philly.com/philly/busines..._building.html 343 feet isn't bad. Honestly, this looks to be an extension of the Penn Museum... |
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