America's Favorite Architecture

Returning for my fiftieth reunion, I was shocked, then thrilled to see what had replaced my affectionately remembered old wooden colonial house dorm, right in the middle of the campus. This building is an amazing addition to an amazing school, but how does anybody get any work done as they sit there in that wondrous space?

Louis Kahn's library, where I spent many hours studying, is a magnificent feature of Phillips Exeter Academy. The architect was, of course, a genius.

But the school has not always been so lucky in its experiments with modern buildings. The brutalist concrete-and-rusted-steel gym remains a shapeless eyesore 40 years after its construction, despite half-hearted efforts to screen it behind pine trees. Even worse is the recent Phelps Science Center, an overscaled brick monstrosity of no particular style which usurped the front lawn of Lamont Infimary on Tan Lane.

Compare Phelps Science Center to the nearby Colonial Revival designs of Ralph Adams Cram, whose firm once exclusively designed all 20th century Exeter buildings (including the iconic Academy Building and former Davis Library), and it is clear that architectural taste at Exeter depends on which faction of the faculty is then in control -- the sciences or liberal arts. Phelps was obviously created when the sciences were dominant, and not surprisingly it is all about gee-whiz features. But for those with an eye for proportion and beauty, it is a mediocre abomination, simultaneously a bulk and void at the school's heart. It will never appear on any list of great buildings, and those who use it won't care.

Fortunately, Kahn's library was created when the pendulum had swung the other way.