«At Kresge College, there are no stretches of lawn crisscrossed by paths leading to properly institutional buildings. Instead, an asphalt street winds up a wooded hill, punctuated by plazas. The buildings that line this street and frame the plazas flash white-painted facades with occasional areas of primary colors. Irregularly punctured false fronts increase the importance of the street. The scale is intimate; the effect is of a Mediterranean village, set incongruously in the midst of a redwood forest. […]
They felt that the students should not lead anomic lives, that the architecture of the college should provide opportunity for many different patterns of human association. Accordingly they discarded the traditional hierarchy of spaces: an academic and administrative core with a periphery of residential and social areas. They thought rather of shopping centers and villages, where a mixed-use building pattern causes people to rub shoulders in the street at any time. […]
To this the architects respond that their stagecraft is quite serious. Americans have traditionally gone to faraway places to have their sensory awareness expanded by settings so untypical of the U.S.A. that they take on the quality of stage sets. Historically, architecture is full of patent façade-making, of which the false-fronted Western town is one vivid example. […]
Without careful maintenance, the stuccoed wood-frame buildings may, with the aid of vines growing over them, self-destruct in less than their allotted lifetime of 40 years. The architects did not choose impermanence. […] If people do care for the places they help to make and remake in the course of their passage through them, then enough measures of devotion may accrue to Kresge to prolong its life indefinitely.»
Text:
- Woodbridge, Sally. «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, vol. 55, núm. 5, maig de 1974, pp. 76-83.
Imatges:
- Històrica 1: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 76.
- Històrica 2: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Autor desconegut. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 77.
- Històrica 3: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 78.
- Històrica 4: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 80.
- Històrica 5: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Karl Smith. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 80.
- Històrica 6: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Karl Smith. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 80.
- Històrica 7: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Rob Super. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 80.
- Històrica 8: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 81.
- Històrica 9: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Rob Super. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 81.
- Històrica 10: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Rob Super. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 81.
- Històrica 11: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Autor desconegut. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 82.
- Històrica 12: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Autor desconegut. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 82.
- Històrica 13: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 83.
- Històrica 14: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia. Foto: Morley Baer. Extreta de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 83.
Plànols:
- Plànol 1: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia (1973). Site plan. Extret de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 78.
- Plànol 2: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia (1973). Axonometric plan. Extret de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 79.
- Plànol 3: Kresge College, Santa Cruz, Califòrnia (1973). «Octet» unit / Typical 8-bed suite / 4-bed apartment floor plans. Extret de: Sally Woodbridge, «How to make a place». Progressive Architecture, maig de 1974, p. 81.