Page 69 - Studio International - May June 1975

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Cornell University, Ithaca, 1973

Architect: I.M. Pei Associates

Cornell is a campus with some very of earlier formal exercises, such as it would have lacked two qualities that the
special qualities. Its natural setting, on a Lissitzky's and Stam's Constructivist new building possesses : it would not have
mountain overlooking the Finger Lakes, `cloud props' of 1924; but the Johnson opened up the views from the top; and it
is one of the most pleasant in the U.S. tower is, more importantly, very much would not have stopped the leaking out of
And the older quadrangles, framed by concerned with problems of function and space that occurs, at present, at the rather
unpretentious buildings of local stone, of site. open and unresolved corners of the Old
and shaded by majestic oak and elm First, the functional problems : the Arts Quad. Moreover, in exploring the
trees, are still relatively unspoiled. building was to be, from the very start, a nature of the site, the architects discovered
In this setting I. M. Pei and Partners multi-purpose structure; and like the that the existing water table was too high
have just completed a very interesting early Constructivists, I. M. Pei and to permit them to excavate much farther
building, the Johnson Art Center, Partners have articulated each function in than they actually did; and they further
named after Herbert F. Johnson, a considerable detail. found that widening the building below
Cornell alumnus who was a frequent In considering the problems of or above ground would have meant
client of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is function and of site which the architects cutting down some beautiful trees they
hardly a Wrightian building; it is a attempted to solve here, one is bound to found on the site.
highly visible tower, on the most visible think of alternatives that might have So there is a very good case to be made
site on the Cornell campus — a natural produced a less monumental structure. for this building and the way it is, and the
promontory just to the west of the It seems obvious that a long and low building itself makes it for us. It also
College of Architecture which forms lump of a building, on that site, would makes a case for courage : courage on the
one side of Cornell's oldest and most have been neither fish nor fowl — just part of a University which hasn't shown
splendid quandrangle, the Arts Quad. another nonentity on a campus already too much of that in terms of architecture,
The Johnson tower is a concrete too strong on nonentities. in recent years; and courage on the part
lookout of formidable height, and it is a So the only alternative that comes to of the architects, whose very visibility
controversial building for that reason mind is another non-building — a on this campus now predictably invites
alone; but, unlike some new apparitions multi-storey art centre tucked away under brickbats from all comers. (But, then,
on the Cornel campus, it is hardly an the crest of this promontory site, and the Johnson tower looks solid enough to
insensitive building. The Johnson tower seeded and planted on top. resist those.) •
is, of course, a formal exercise reminiscent It is not an inconceivable solution, but Peter Blake

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