A Form to Heighten Function

No one has ever accused Cal State Northridge of having a beautiful campus. In fact, one architect cracked that the place “looks like a collection of bank buildings.” After the Northridge earthquake, CSUN looked even worse, its grounds and parking lots covered by nondescript temporary buildings. Yet the devastation left behind five years ago has given campus administrators the opportunity to give CSUN more flair.

Last week, California State University trustees approved plans for a new arts, media and communication building designed by Robert A.M. Stern, the architect responsible for Disney’s signature animation building in Burbank. Stern’s $16.8-million L-shaped glass structure will replace the fine arts building designed by Richard Neutra that was heavily damaged in the quake and torn down in 1997. Although some critics said the fine arts building was not among Neutra’s best works, its loss nonetheless left a void on campus larger than its physical space.

Universities deserve fine architecture. True, students can learn as well in a generic, portable classroom as they can in a structural masterpiece. But if universities like CSUN are to be more than career training grounds--if they are to challenge assumptions and expose young minds to new ideas--they should at least try to look the part. To that end, school administrators two years ago embarked on an ambitious design program to improve the aesthetics of the campus.

Since much of the campus had to be rebuilt, why not jazz it up?

The thinking then was that place matters.

It does.

CSUN will never look like an idealized East Coast campus with ivy-covered brick buildings. It matured in a different era, a generation in which ornamentation succumbed to functionality. Good Modernist architecture defies its stark, sanitized image and creates a place that celebrates its function. Spots like that are rare on CSUN’s campus. Instead, the place just feels cold and impersonal. But times change--as do architectural styles.

With the Stern building, and with a new faculty club designed by Stephanos D. Polyzoides, CSUN is beginning to establish of diverse collection of architecture to house students and faculty, but maybe also to inspire and challenge them.