2008 Woodie Awards
Cite magazine features UST campus
Shannen Garza
Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Other News
Rice University's Cite Magazine featured the UST campus on its cover last month, critiquing its architectural structure in the lead story.
Michelangelo Sabatino, an architecture professor at the University of Houston, said he was first drawn to UST's structure because of the significance of the Academic Mall as a point in Houston architectural history. Sabatino said that he believes that, in its transformation over the past several decades, the University has compromised the original unique design of the 1950s campus master plan to advance its image in the eyes of the surrounding Houston community.
"I think the academic quad is a testimony to a rare form of understated elegance," Sabatino said. "The flurry of landscape and building initiatives that has gone on recently at UST, including the ostentatious billboard at the corner of Montrose and W. Alabama, betrays the austerity of the quad. If UST is to continue to say something to the rest of Houston, it will need to focus less on branding initiatives and return to the restraint that the Basilian fathers exercised in the 1950s under the watch of Dominique and John de Menil."
In Sabatino's article, "Cracking the Egg," UST's original campus layout is compared to its current design. Several curiosities, such as why Philip Johnson was named the architect for the university in 1956 despite several objections, are noted. Sabatino said he believes the recent campus changes have detracted from the originality of Johnson's design.
"I think fostering tradition and identity is an important component of every successful university," Sabatino said. "The most important thing is to keep true to one's own tradition and avoid doing what everyone else is doing. For example, what makes the UST academic quad so special is that it looks to both modern and traditional architecture for inspiration. Philip Johnson combined the simplified forms of his teacher Mies van der Rohe with the classical rhetoric of Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia. In my opinion, the buildings outside of the quad (i.e. Guinan Hall, Moran Parking Facility, Crooker Center, etc) have failed to keep the same dialectic going between modernity and tradition."
Sabatino opens and closes his article with a comparison of UST to an egg dish. A hard-boiled egg conjures up the compact qualities of the traditional city, whereas scrambled eggs are associated with contemporary expansiveness, Sabatino said. He advises the University to rethink its strategies when reconstructing the campus in the future. The article can be found in the Winter 2008 edition of Cite Magazine.
Michelangelo Sabatino, an architecture professor at the University of Houston, said he was first drawn to UST's structure because of the significance of the Academic Mall as a point in Houston architectural history. Sabatino said that he believes that, in its transformation over the past several decades, the University has compromised the original unique design of the 1950s campus master plan to advance its image in the eyes of the surrounding Houston community.
"I think the academic quad is a testimony to a rare form of understated elegance," Sabatino said. "The flurry of landscape and building initiatives that has gone on recently at UST, including the ostentatious billboard at the corner of Montrose and W. Alabama, betrays the austerity of the quad. If UST is to continue to say something to the rest of Houston, it will need to focus less on branding initiatives and return to the restraint that the Basilian fathers exercised in the 1950s under the watch of Dominique and John de Menil."
In Sabatino's article, "Cracking the Egg," UST's original campus layout is compared to its current design. Several curiosities, such as why Philip Johnson was named the architect for the university in 1956 despite several objections, are noted. Sabatino said he believes the recent campus changes have detracted from the originality of Johnson's design.
"I think fostering tradition and identity is an important component of every successful university," Sabatino said. "The most important thing is to keep true to one's own tradition and avoid doing what everyone else is doing. For example, what makes the UST academic quad so special is that it looks to both modern and traditional architecture for inspiration. Philip Johnson combined the simplified forms of his teacher Mies van der Rohe with the classical rhetoric of Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia. In my opinion, the buildings outside of the quad (i.e. Guinan Hall, Moran Parking Facility, Crooker Center, etc) have failed to keep the same dialectic going between modernity and tradition."
Sabatino opens and closes his article with a comparison of UST to an egg dish. A hard-boiled egg conjures up the compact qualities of the traditional city, whereas scrambled eggs are associated with contemporary expansiveness, Sabatino said. He advises the University to rethink its strategies when reconstructing the campus in the future. The article can be found in the Winter 2008 edition of Cite Magazine.