User:Kzirkel/sandbox/brandeis

Architecture
Although Brandeis was established on the site of Middlesex University, little remains of that campus infrastructure. Ford Hall was built in 1940 as a veterinary school for Middlesex as Main Hall. Brandeis re-christened it Science Hall, and it was named for University Trustee John F. Ford in 1952. An addition to Ford Hall, Sydeman Hall, was completed in 1951. Ford Hall is best known today as the site of an 11-day student occupation in January 1969. Both Ford and Sydeman were torn down in the summer of 2000. Usen Castle (1928), the last remaining Middlesex building, still stands but was partly demolished in 2017.

President Abram Sachar asked friend and former student Max Abramovitz to develop a master plan for the new Brandeis campus. Abramovitz declined at first, and Eero Saarinen was hired instead. Rather than focus the campus around traditional quadrangles of academic buildings, Saarinen's plan called for a central "seat of learning" surrounded by residential quadrangles. Saarinen's firm constructed a few buildings including Ridgewood Quadrangle, Sherman Student Center and Shapiro Dormitory, but Saarinen's overall plan was abandoned. By the mid-1950s, Abramovitz took over as master planner; he oversaw University planning for 30 years and designed several campus buildings including the Rose Art Museum (1961). The Three Chapels (1956) are probably Abramovitz's most recognized work on campus, receiving the AIA Award of Merit in 1956.

Starting in 1961, Benjamin Thompson, working for The Architects Collaborative, designed three major building groups for the University. These were the Academic Quadrangle (1961), the Social Science Center (1961, three buildings), and the East Quadrangle (1964). On the occasion of the University's 50th anniversary in 1999, it was observed that "[no other architect] has contributed more to the overall campus image than Benjamin Thompson."

Between Thompson and Abramovitz as well as Hugh Stubbins and a few others, a consistent style emerged for the campus which was based in the dominant International Style of the day. Brandeis was characterized by low horizontal structures with heavy, flat, overhanging roofs and glass curtain windows. Buildings featured structural concrete frames with non-bearing exterior walls; few visual tricks or trendiness; and an "almost Japanese attitude toward composition and siting." Simplicity, beauty, and functionality were prioritized over grandeur, both to fit within the New England context and also to keep costs down for the young university.

More recently, the campus has seen several constructions in steel and glass, including the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Campus Center (2002, Charles Rose Architects), Carl Shapiro Science Center (2009, Payette), Mandel Center for the Humanities (2010, Kallman McKinnell & Wood), and Skyline Residence Hall (2018, William Rawn Associates).