Change Over Time

Though considered a success in its day, the function of the Grad Center has changed greatly over time. Originally built to house single graduate students and nearly three times as many men as women, the co-ed Graduate Center today holds about 450 undergraduates gathered predominantly in suites of friends or acquaintances. The dining hall in the Commons Building has been replaced with a small café and exercise equipment, the meeting rooms have become storage space or computer clusters, and the beautiful lounge area is not as prominent as it used to be. Rumors circulate that the lack of common space and convoluted spatial interior of the towers was intended as a form of riot-proofing, though the University nor the firm has never officially acknowledged this suspicion. Built in the midst of student activism of the late 1960s, it is not unlikely that this rumor may have held some credibility in the minds of the designers and sponsors. The fortress-like structure is, however, fire-proofed to great lengths from the treatment of materials to the numerous exits and scissor-stairs that allow for two different staircases within the same vertical space. The Graduate Center is a building one can love or hate, but it is nonetheless very interesting to experience a building that is so fundamentally grounded in the spirit of its time today.