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The early decades of the twentieth century witnessed an unprecedented expansion in American institutions of higher education. In particular, the local or regional colleges of the Northeast with their colonial foundation experienced a transformation that would rival universities of international prominence, Corresponding with this increase in size and stature, these institutions embarked on ambitious building campaigns in order to accommodate their growing student bodies. It is the architectural manifestation of this collegiate transformation and its legacy in contemporary practice that forms the subject of this essay.
`Many universities, in search of an appropriate architectural expression for institutional identity, opted for some variant of the "collegiate Gothic" style, thereby aligning themselves with the cultural and academic prestige of the medieval English universities. Across the country, hundreds of dormitories, classroom buildings, science labs, and other academic buildings were being constructed in stone or brick with Gothic and Tudor detailing. A few universities, notably Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the Uni ver sip? of Pennsylvania, went beyond mere stylistic emulation and attempted to recreate the organizational format of Cambridge and Oxford by introducing a collegiate residential system. This reorganization had several goals. First, by subdividing the student body into smaller social units, these institutions hoped to reinforce the sense of intimacy? and community that was threatened by the overall increase in the size of the school.' Secondly, they sought to counteract divisions based on academic or extra-curricular interests, or more importantly, those based on social class, such as tended to be reinforced by fraternities and other private clubs,2 Lastly, they sought to establish an academic and cultural approach similar to the ancient English universities. Oxford and Cambridge were widely admired by American academics and university administrators, many of whom worried that American universities were beginning to place too much emphasis on research (in the manner of German universities), at the expense of teaching, which still held a central role in England. The social interaction of students and faculty who lived together within Oxbridge colleges was seen as a critical component of successful teaching,*
Although many of the buildings to be discussed here are Gothic, the scope of investigation is defined less by style than by the application of the collegiate format: a subdivision of the student body into...