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How Gothic Architecture Took Over the American College Campus (Gothic = Racist)
The Atlantic ^ | September 11, 2013 | Robinson Meyer

Posted on 09/11/2013 8:21:53 AM PDT by C19fan

The campus of Yale University, 1921. Midnight.

It is perhaps the most important job of your career. You, a successful architect, have been selected by a rich donor to build a new tower here, on your alma mater’s campus, at Yale. The tower, Gothic in style, named “Harkness,” must look archaic, timeless. It is 216 feet tall, one foot for every year since Yale’s founding. You could be building history…except that the tower does not look nearly old enough.

So you—in, presumably, a long cape, high collar, and top hat—sneak to the construction site. You pull a flask from the folds of your garment, uncork it—and throw acid onto the new granite.

The rock wears away, shows pockmarks, ages.

You have done it. You are a genius.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: architecture; gothic; university
The author claims racism was a major motivation for colleges and universities during the late 19th century to adopt Gothic Revival architecture. What is funny the article shows the Wren Building on the William & Mary Campus as a counter example. The person who put the caption does not seem to realize the building was restored during the 1920s as part of John D. Rockefeller's overall plan to restore Colonial Williamsburg. Gothic Revival was a very popular architectural style during the Victorian Era and it has nothing to do with racism but as a reaction against Neo-Classical architecture and the yearning for what was perceived as the craftsmanship and spirituality of the Medieval period.
1 posted on 09/11/2013 8:21:53 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

What was the architectural style of the people who ended slavery?


2 posted on 09/11/2013 8:23:31 AM PDT by Steely Tom (If the Constitution can be a living document, I guess a corporation can be a person.)
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To: C19fan

3 posted on 09/11/2013 8:27:05 AM PDT by Fido969
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This is what they would look like if they weren't built by racists


4 posted on 09/11/2013 8:31:03 AM PDT by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%)
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To: Steely Tom

“What was the architectural style of the people who ended slavery?”

Late Greek Revival, and early Victorian.


5 posted on 09/11/2013 8:32:22 AM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: C19fan

The effort to link Gothic architecture with racism is pretty thin. It seems that it was largely an effort to give the schools a sense of gravitas, of tradition, of history, of timelessness. You can’t do that with a grass hut.


6 posted on 09/11/2013 8:41:59 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: C19fan

Racism everywhere! Aaaaahhhhh!!!


7 posted on 09/11/2013 8:46:06 AM PDT by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: C19fan
All that crap has got to cost a lot of money... No wonder college is expensive...

Why not use utility buildings to build the lecture halls and classrooms in?

Ain;t gonna happen because the elite in academia feel like they have to be "gods in their domains"...

They claim to be against the elite, but they ARE the elite!

8 posted on 09/11/2013 8:48:12 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: C19fan

Campuses should look more like African villages, huts and all. The witch doctor (PhD of course) can have the biggest one.


9 posted on 09/11/2013 8:49:10 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: Steely Tom
I'm not sure who's more despicable - Wilson, a progressive one-worlder elitist leftist that segregated the US Armed Forces, or Meyer, that apparently sees racism because philanthropists failed to endow edifices that would fit perfectly in the slums of Soweto, Mumbai, Rio, or even Detroit.

Sorry, but the Section 8 housing style usually doesn't inspire people.

I wonder if Meyer ever read "The Fountainhead"?

10 posted on 09/11/2013 9:12:35 AM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: Fido969

Ah ha ha ha! We do love our pallor, don’t we?


11 posted on 09/11/2013 9:14:06 AM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (Ephesians 6:12 becomes more real to me with each news cycle.)
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To: dsrtsage
I was thinking somethng more like this:


12 posted on 09/11/2013 9:30:32 AM PDT by Gamecock (Many Atheists take the stand: "There is no God AND I hate Him.")
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To: C19fan
The author cited the pertinent quote, italicized the offending phrase, and still managed to draw the incorrect conclusions from the presence of a single word. The phrase is "the English-speaking race." The speaker is Woodrow Wilson, and precisely what he meant by "English-speaking race" is a little murky given the fact that English is a language spoken by many races.

The truth is that language and race aren't the same thing, nor are architecture and race. If your entire worldview is filtered through the current progressive obsession with race then you tend to produce this sort of nonsense.

13 posted on 09/11/2013 9:40:09 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: dsrtsage
That's some amazing masonry.

I am convinced that if some 3,900 year old Babylonian construction site foreman came up to that guy in 2013 and saw his lousy mudsmithing, there would be some immediate lashing going down.

14 posted on 09/11/2013 9:53:47 AM PDT by The KG9 Kid
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To: Billthedrill

Race, prior to WWII and the Nazis, was used a lot more loosely. Often meant just group or nationality.

In fact the #2 definition of the word is still: “2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.”

Which would make what Wilson said the rough equivalent of Winston Churchill’s “English speaking peoples.”


15 posted on 09/11/2013 2:33:53 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Mark Steyn: "In the Middle East, the enemy of our enemy is also our enemy.")
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To: C19fan

I’m no fan of Wilson.

But “English-speaking race” does not equal “racial cultural triumphalism.”


16 posted on 09/11/2013 2:37:58 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Mark Steyn: "In the Middle East, the enemy of our enemy is also our enemy.")
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To: C19fan
Good analysis. The original Gothic revival had much to do with nostalgia for the Christian past. Collegiate Gothic added a desire to emulate Oxford and the great cathedrals of Europe.

Certainly, Georgian architecture -- the usual alternative for American college construction -- is (if we have to go there) far more connected to slavery and racism than Gothic.

One of the commenters on the Atlantic site points out that the prominent architect of Duke University's Gothic buildings -- Julian Abele -- was in fact an African-American.

One thing we can fault American collegiate architects for, though, is combining the two styles in strange ways:


17 posted on 09/11/2013 2:56:32 PM PDT by x
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To: Sherman Logan

Yep. “Anglosphere” is a more contemporary locution but clearly Wilson did not mean to indicate white supremacy. And I’m no Wilson fan either.


18 posted on 09/11/2013 3:01:55 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: C19fan

It couldn’t have anything to do with European universities our universities emulated traditionally being built in Gothic style, could it?


19 posted on 09/11/2013 3:35:51 PM PDT by OldNewYork (Biden '13. Impeach now.)
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To: Billthedrill

Wilson was most definitely a white supremacist, but he wasn’t expressing it in this case.


20 posted on 09/11/2013 4:07:42 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Mark Steyn: "In the Middle East, the enemy of our enemy is also our enemy.")
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