The controversy:
View looking westward of the Engineering Center in 1965 - Excerpted from archive of W.M. Muchow, Lead Architect.
The "Engineering Sciences" Center was completed in 1965 and officially opened in 1966. It was designed by Architectural Associates of Colorado, Partner-in-Charge W. M. Muchow; Design Consultants Pietro Belluschi and Sasaki, Walker & Associates. It won awards for its design before it was even built - In 1963, Progressive Architecture Magazine Awarded it in the category of "Education".
Called the brutalist style of architecture - people love it and hate it. Some think it's going to have a resurgence while others are celebrating brutalist buildings being torn down. It's amazing that these structures remain divisive some 50 years after they've been built - a controversy that persists through time. At CU, our students like to call the Engineering Center building "the concrete coffin" or "the mineshaft" - either way, it's not being torn down anytime soon.
Close-up - wood-grained concrete surrounds the Engineering Center's exterior.
Brutalism was a play on words, as the method of leaving the concrete exterior surfaces unfinished is in French béton brut, or "raw concrete". The modern-day concrete surface of the building is pictured at right - still clearly visible are the wooden forms used to initially contain the poured concrete and the flash where excess concrete leaked out between the wood. Compared to the smooth, polished concrete surfaces typical of the rest of campus, these bumpy walls were a shock to CU Alumni and visitors when the building was officially dedicated in May of 1966.
The banner/masthead of the Colorado Alumnus in 1966
While the building won subsequent Architectural Awards for its novel use of space and striking appearance, critics were vocal with their disapproval. The CU Alumnus Magazine, for instance, started things off in February of 1966:
“As for the outside of the building, we are with the severest critics. We think the structure looks like it was designed by a committee. Whatever the intent was in combining large expanses of bare concrete with Lyons sandstone, esthetically it doesn’t work. Particularly it doesn’t work with the concrete looking so gray and streaked. Oh, well, perhaps we’ll get used to it. Or perhaps trees will help.” [Olin, R. (1966, February). What Goes On Here? The Colorado Alumnus, 56(5), 2.]
Many alumni submitted their opinions of the new building - in print - in the Colorado Alumnus and the Denver Post:
"No doubt the inside of the shed is beautiful and functional, but the outside could be beautiful too. Instead it is ug ug ug ugly .... Some chicken coop. I should think you would be ashamed to put that picture of that mess in your paper" - signed Arthur Darling, class of 1929.
"Who... designed this mess -- a Kansas wheat farmer? I ask this because the new Center looks exactly like a jumble of old, dilapidated grain elevators--no less ugly." - from John R. Olbert, class of 1959.
Other alumni suggested covering the bumpy concrete walls with ivy, and even initiated an "Ivy Fund", donations for encouraging ivy growth.
The building remains divisive today -- a controversy that has persisted nearly 5 decades.