It's nice to see pointed roofs.

Let me begin this comment with an apology for briefly monopolizing conversation last week as I tried not very artfully to make a point about colonization.  I think Mills Hall and the Arctic Studies Center may help make my point.

We’re presently in an era when there are a good many initiatives afoot to help us—especially those of us descended from the world’s colonizers—to become sensitized to even the most nuanced results of colonization, and since that process is relatively young, I’m not sure it’s fair to say decolonization is over. 

But my principal point was to suggest that understanding colonization metaphorically may be helpful in becoming aware of some of those nuances.  When an architect injects a building into an environment in a way that takes over that environment, isn’t that a form of colonization?  It’s not impossible, of course, that the environment might welcome the takeover, but it’s a takeover nevertheless. I mentioned the Denver Art Museum as an example, where Liebeskind’s addition intentionally upstages the original building.  On the other hand, the somewhat fortress-like third addition, completed recently, may be more restrained but certainly lacks the drama of the Liebeskind addition, suggesting that colonization can have its benefits. Bottom line: any new building is an intrusion on the environment, and the colonial metaphor might help an architect to evaluate the quality of that intrusion. Is it a welcome intrusion or not?  Does it take account of what’s already there, ignore it, or actively compete with it?  Is the new building as satisfactory to the neighbors as to the client?  And so on. Frankly, I love the Liebiskind wing.  Yes, it upstages the rest, but in my opinion, the rest needs upstaging.  I’d look on this as a welcome colonization.  

So back to Mills Hall and the Arctic Studies Center, just what impact do they have on their environment?  Do they complement it? Compete with it? Take it over? And what values do we associate with whatever judgment we arrive at?

Both buildings are colonizing an extremely small space closely surrounded by very traditional brick buildings except for the parking lot. This imposes its own logic on the project. A sharp conflict [Liebeskind] would find it difficult to stand alone and [in my opinion] would be just noise except when seen from the parking lot [all Liebeskind’s conflicts that I know always have excellent viewing potential]. Rather than design a traditional snoozer, the architects  chose to refer to the surroundings building's building material [brick] and facades while introducing vibrant designs. However there is an unnecessary untoward  dissonance in the roof lines of both buildings best seen  from the parking lot and Rte 123. This is easily resolved [in my opinion] by having the museum's roof pitches be a mirror image of the Mill's building. This change does not significantly disrupt the opposite end of the museum since the large window is so far from the roof. The architect's drawing is unfortunate since it omits a large adjacent building that block the view it presents.