Larry Moneta calls it a "piazza/plaza." He is thinking "water elements, beautiful surfaces, light and color." Tallman Trask once mentioned two levels. It will definitely replace the walkway. That is all we know. And that last part should change.
Duke is in a hurry. November 13 the appointment of an architect was made public. Construction starts this summer. In the spirit of the ongoing Ivy takeover, the changes will be dictated by a Harvard veteran.
The landscape architect company that has been selected to design the plaza is Hargreaves Associates, a San Francisco-based business headed by Harvard professor George Hargreaves. The leader of the team responsible for the Piazza Moneta is the well-established Glenn Allen.
The credentials of the company are impressive. It has built the Olympic Plaza for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. It has worked with Studio Daniel Liebeskind on the winning WTC-site design. Most importantly, it has designed the Sigma Sigma Commons at the University of Cincinnati.
The Cincinnati design was featured on the front page of the Chronicle back in November. Though the design was far from riveting, I did not think it was particularly hideous. Most people I spoke with, however, thought it was plain ugly.
Secretly I was hoping that Allen would pursue a less bland, more classical design for Duke. L-Mo shattered my dream in the article accompanying the illustration. According to Moneta, the work the firm has done in Cincinnati is representative of what he wants in the plaza.
Usually, I like to trust professionals. A firm like Hargreaves, especially, should be perfectly capable of designing an acceptable student square. But professionals once created the atrocious architectural monster we have come to know as the Bryan Center.
Scepsis, therefore, is warranted.
In an interview with the Harvard University Gazette, George Hargreaves has complained that "so far the work of landscape architects has not drawn the attention and notoriety that often accrues to the efforts of architects."
Let me accrue the attention and notoriety that might follow.
Walking over the Bryan Center walkway, I paused for a bit to look around and dream. I tried to project Moneta's "water elements, beautiful surfaces, light and color" onto my surroundings. I started walking over an imaginary promenade crossing the center of the Piazza Moneta. And I nearly killed myself falling off the walkway onto the supply route for Page Auditorium.
Hargreaves Associates supposedly specializes in difficult sites. Wonderful, because physically, we are stuck with a ridiculously awkward space. I simply do not understand what Allen, Trask and Moneta have in mind.
Tunnels? Bridges? Escalators?
Who is going to unveil this mystery? Who will explain to the Duke community what the ambitious plans are? So far, I see three possibilities. DSG, Campus Council or Gregg Heinselman.
Gregg who?
Gregg Heinselman is the new director of the Office of Student Activities and Facilities. I had a chance to briefly meet him last fall, and he seemed like a competent man. He is the member of Moneta's cabinet directly overseeing the creation of the new student plaza.
In the Oct. 27 Chronicle, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Zoila Airall said that "she has utmost confidence in Heinselman to coordinate a center students will like, in great part because he has shown an ability to communicate well with all parties involved--from architects and contractors to undergraduate and graduate students."
I do not, on the other hand, have utmost confidence in DSG. It took the Visions of Duke survey to make them realize that it is their job to reach out to students. The Chronicle reported the reaction of DSG Attorney General Dave Kahne:
"Kahne said he had come to a realization about DSG's role in obtaining feedback. "A lot of people in student government say students are apathetic... [but] maybe it's our job, maybe we should be actively trying to get their support than making them try to come to us," he said."
No crap.
Campus Council has filled the void left by DSG. With Anthony Vitarelli (and previously Andrew Nurkin) in charge, they have represented students better, and have achieved more, than DSG under three consecutive presidents. But on the subject of the plaza they have been silent.
Unless DSG and Campus Council step up, the burden of explaining Piazza Moneta to us regular students falls on Heinselman. I am confident he can handle that.
But please, Gregg, give us a blueprint. A model. A sketch.
"Construction is a recurring theme at a young institution like Duke, and students should learn to live with it," the Chronicle once wrote in an editorial. I am certainly willing to live with it, but I need to know what is going on.
In the meanwhile, I recommend everyone tries to find a room as far away from the walkway as possible. Next semester, construction will once again be drastic.
Joost Bosland is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every other Tuesday.
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