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Will never forget the day in class with Prof. Deneen in which we looked at pictures of various university libraries at the beginning and end of the 20th century. I don’t remember all the schools we looked at, but Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and maybe (1/n)
some Ivies. The change was startling, and also disheartening. The universities had traded beauty for brutalism, and this was no mere stylistic or aesthetic shift. As we learn, beautiful buildings are so constructed because they house or foster beautiful things. (2/n)
These libraries were once houses of knowledge wherein young people received something of an aristocratic capstone before venturing into the world. As Aristotle reminds us, education consists in teaching the pupil what he ought to like and dislike. This kind of education (3/n)
is what the old libraries facilitated. Beautiful buildings for a beautiful purpose. Now what do we have? Brutalism, utilitarianism—and increasingly a McMansion phenomenon as more universities suffer from the country club effect. This is no coincidence or mystery. (4/n)
As universities morphed into multiversities, their focus shifted entirely. Inculcation of virtue, knowledge of the liberating (liberal) arts—these things are long gone, save for a few departments at a few schools. Now, we train countless young people on how to join the (5/n)
laptop class and we call it education. It’s training, to be sure, but hardly education. As with the mission of the university, so too have the very buildings morphed into hulking brutalist monstrosities, a representation not only of the campus, but of education itself. (6/n)
And any attempts at remodeling and beautifying are resulting in this Dorian Gray phenomenon in which sleek, visually appealing new student centers are constructed, and new dorms rival the Ritz-Carlton. But step inside these places and see what the students are reading. (7/n)
Are they discovering virtue, or contemplating eudaimonia? Are they wrestling with Aquinas? Are they studying the Apology of Plato? Or, alternatively, are they learning how to join a Big Four consulting firm? You don’t need to ask. Just look at the building they’re in. (8/8)
