Two parts Spanish cathedral and one part Greek agora, the new Smith Campus Center is a big and sophisticated work of architecture, a handsome building that seeks to redefine both the campus itself and the routines and rhythms of campus life. Borrowing freely from a range of architectural traditions, the Smith Center is easily Pomona's most important structure of recent years.
Like almost any other building, it has its flaws, as its first few months of use have demonstrated. Many of these flaws, however, will be corrected over time, as changes are made to the structure itself and--just as importantly--as students and faculty members change their habits to take better advantage of the new spaces that are now available.
The building's most impressive space, the outdoor plaza at its midpoint, has quickly become the lively crossroads it was intended to be. On foot and on bikes and roller blades, people pass through almost constantly--on their way to the Rains Center, which is at one end of the walk that cuts through the building, or perhaps on their way to Alexander Hall or the academic quadrangle formed by Pearsons, Crookshank and Mason halls. The Coop Store and Fountain and the food service's new Sagehen Café all open into the plaza, and a new facility that centralizes students' mailboxes is nearby. In good weather, students, professors and staff members gather to talk, eat and even study at tables placed around the plaza's fountain and under four towering cottonwood trees.
Much less busy, however, is the upstairs game room--which, unlike the game room in the old union, is far from both the beaten path and the pool cues, which must be signed out in the store downstairs. And so far the spacious, tasteful lounges overlooking Marston Quadrangle rarely attract more than a few people each. A teaching-and-learning center occupies a handsome space on the second floor, but not many faculty members seem to be taking advantage of it--not yet, at least. Nearby is an even more splendid room--with beautiful furniture and a ceiling of graceful, shallow vaults--that is reserved for special occasions. Meanwhile, the party rooms in the basement are so plain that it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to have a meeting there, much less a bash.
The Smith Campus Center is the work of Robert A.M. Stern, one of the most respected American architects now practicing; others in his firm who helped out with the project include Graham Wyatt, Adam Anuszkiewicz and Diane Scott. But in a very real sense, the building is also the work of an architect hired by the College more than 90 years ago--Myron Hunt, who created a master plan for the campus in 1908 and went on to construct several of its most notable buildings: Smiley Hall, Rembrandt Hall, Lebus Court and Mabel Shaw Bridges Hall of Music, better known as Little Bridges.
Hunt's plan for the campus, to which the Smith Center is a direct response, was a classic Beaux Arts design that aligned the principal buildings along a central axis, Marston Quadrangle. Within 15 years of its unveiling, Hunt's plan had begun to become reality. The Carnegie Library anchored one end of the axis; Sumner Hall, which had been in the middle of the quadrangle, was moved out of the way; Hunt designed Little Bridges so that its elegant Spanish-style front overlooked the new green's midpoint.
The Edmunds Union, which the Campus Center replaces, was a late addition to the plan. Constructed in 1937 along the quadrangle's north side, it was expanded in 1951 and renovated in 1970. In the mid-1980s, however, the building again seemed inadequate, especially at a time when other private colleges were commissioning adventurous campus centers from prominent architects. At New York's Hamilton College, for instance, Perry Dean Rogers & Partners added a sunny, delightful building composed of traditional house and barn shapes; at Bowdoin College, in Maine, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates turned an old gymnasium into a campus center that is nearly as much fun as a theme park.
Stern was chosen to design Pomona's new campus center in 1993.
Known originally as a designer of Shingle Style houses, he has more recently created buildings as diverse as Disney hotels, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts and Princeton University's Center for Jewish Life. He is also a respected scholar and the dean of the Yale School of Architecture.
Stern's assignment at Pomona was anything but easy: create a place equally inviting and accommodating to students, professors and staff members. Fit it perfectly into Hunt's plan for the campus. Make it notable in its own right, but without losing sight of a rich campus architectural tradition that includes not only Little Bridges but also such elegant buildings as Harwood Court and the Clark-Frary-Norton complex.
In many respects the building succeeds admirably. Its western end, directly opposite Little Bridges, is a precise contemporary echo of the older Spanish-Renaissance structure. A large, arched entry is topped by a round window set in a plain wall; here, as elsewhere, Stern relies on simple, elegant detailing: flattened columns, called pilasters, contain the wall and support the ends of a graceful cornice. Beyond the entrance is a large, open-air lobby that features a detailed history of local architecture worked in bronze in the floor; a statue of the goddess Pomona perches above an elevator that leads down to a 200-seat auditorium. The lobby functions much like a traffic circle, as it marks the intersection of the axis from Little Bridges with the walk leading from the Rains Center to Mason Hall.
Stairs lead from the lobby up to the plaza, which is surrounded on three sides by a Greek-style colonnade that is the Smith Center's architectural highlight. Square columns support a second-story wall, which in turn has square windows separated by pilasters and then a perfect cornice beneath a red-tile roof. But no description can do justice to this composition's perfect proportions, which would be at home on any classical acropolis. On clear days the fugue of light and shadow across the colonnade's detailing is as precise and entertaining as anything Bach ever wrote. At night, when a warm glow spills out of the second-story squares and flirts among the columns, the plaza is almost theatrical.
Such a composition goes a long way toward justifying Stern's choice of expensive construction methods. Instead of a conventional steel-frame structure, he elected to use poured concrete, carefully tinted. For the details, he insisted on cast stone. Such decisions were a source of some tension when the College tallied the building's projected costs and was forced to eliminate some proposed features, such as an art gallery and a band practice room. A substantial portion of the basement, indeed, remains unfinished. On the other hand, as it is now the building is probably large enough for a college twice Pomona's size.
Beyond the plaza is another large wing, called the Forum, centered on a handsome stair hall surrounded by a mezzanine. The staircase itself, cascading into the space from one side, is an entertainment in its own right, enhanced by the likelihood that people will be passing through in one direction or another, since the space unites circulation patterns for the entire wing. From the first floor, doors lead back into Edmunds Ballroom, which has been preserved, and forward to the lounges and Marston Quadrangle. On the second floor, the mezzanine offers access to offices and meeting spaces, some of which open onto rooftop terraces; a corridor connects the mezzanine with the second story of the colonnade around the plaza.
If such descriptions make the Smith Campus Center seem huge, it is.
Stern has succeeded nicely, however, in disguising its bulk--by dividing it into several elements, by setting it back from Marston Quadrangle, by lowering the profile of the wing in front of the ballroom. Only in the two-story corridor that runs from end to end, and in its cathedral-sized entrances, does the building's scale seem out of keeping with that of a campus on which intimate courtyards and unassuming passageways predominate.
Indeed, it is in comparison with the College's quirky, interesting older spaces that the Smith Center's flaws seem most apparent. The plaza, paved in plain, beige concrete, would benefit from a more decorative treatment. The lounges need to be softened, and the interiors of the Coop Fountain and the café could both stand to be rethought: Some kind of division between table and traffic areas would make customers feel less vulnerable. The party spaces in the basement might be rethought as well, if not given over to storage--on a campus as attractive as Pomona's, who wants to have a party in a basement?
Some of the building's problems are relatively easy to deal with and are already being addressed. At the building's completion, for example, the plaza cried out for greenery and shade, and recently several large potted trees have been brought in. A quick visit from an acoustical technician might help solve another difficulty: the ventilating equipment for the two eateries is so noisy that it can be heard droning throughout the plaza.
Over the long term, though, these are minor issues. Along with everyone at the College who advised the architects about Pomona's needs--and especially with H. Russell Smith '36 and Jeanne Smith, who made the lead gift--Stern and his team have created a building that is big enough to serve the College for years to come, handsome enough to be worthy of its site and lively enough to enjoy visiting several times a day.
Myron Hunt could not have hoped for more.
Lawrence Biemiller is a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, for which he has written frequently about campus architecture.
