Vassar, Architecturally Speaking

Karen Van Lengen ’73 wrote the Princeton Architectural Press’ campus guide to Vassar, she says, “to understand better her perception of the campus based on her experience as an architect. When I was a student I loved the Vassar campus for its rich and plentiful landscape as well as its many architectures. Being neither a professional nor a professor of architecture at the time, my reactions were based on emotions and visual stimulation rather than a studied understanding of the history and cultural meaning of this environment. So the opportunity to revisit Vassar as a professional architect and teacher was a poignant one for me.”

Van Lengen, dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture since 1999, co-authored the guide with UVA colleague Lisa Reilly ’78, who teaches medieval architecture. Van Lengen had written articles to accompany her design work (she spent six years with I.M. Pei & Partners in New York City and eighteen more heading up her own award-winning architectural firm), but she had yet to write a book. After discussing the idea with Vassar President Fran Fergusson and Kevin Lippert, publisher for the Princeton Architectural Press, she approached Reilly, knowing that her background in the history of architecture would be “very valuable to this process.”

The Arts and Crafts style of Linda Yowell '73
Architects's Kautz Admission House

For both authors, writing about Vassar’s architecture reminded them of what they most loved and admired about the campus. “As a student, I loved the leaded windows of the Taylor art gallery and indeed the entire sensation of walking or driving through Taylor Gate,” Reilly said. “I felt as if that boundary marked my entrance into a very special place that was distinct from the outside world in its beauty and atmosphere.” Van Lengen expressed a similar interest in Taylor Hall—specifically the tower room there, where she took her first architecture course with Senior Art Lecturer Jeh Johnson. “It looked both inward and outward from the same space—Raymond Avenue on one side and a spectacular view of Main on the other. This inside/outside atmosphere above the entry axis is the kind of space that appeals to me—it did then and it does now.”

The conversation pit in Eero Saarinen’s Noyes House

Far from simple reminiscences, though, the research and writing of the book inspired new perceptions of their alma mater for Reilly and Van Lengen. “This project gave me a chance to understand more fully many of the aspects of Vassar which were familiar to me,” Reilly said, such as, “the way the early buildings tied in with educational goals. But I also discovered many new and unexpected things about the college.” The restored Noyes parlor, for example, “brought to my attention how beautiful this building and its interior are, in ways that I had not appreciated as a student.” Van Lengen agreed that taking a closer look at Vassar’s architecture can be as much about discovery as remembrance. In visiting the campus after many years away, she discovered a different school—“one related to the one I knew, but filled with new perceptions and understandings that were not available to me [as an undergraduate],” she said.

Cesar Pelli’s Center for Drama and Film

Vassar is the first college featured in the Princeton Architectural Press’ series of campus guides—a well-deserved honor, Van Lengen believes, since “Vassar’s architectural history is also a history of architecture in America. It will set an interesting background for other colleges in the nation.”

— Micah Buis ’02

Photo credit: Will Faller

Vassar College: The Campus Guide is available through a variety of outlets, including the Vassar College bookstore (http://vassar.bkstore.com, 845.437.5857). Vassar will host an event featuring Van Lengen on May 10, 2005, in Charlottesville, VA. For more information on the program, “Thomas Jefferson & Matthew Vassar: Two Visions of the Academy,” contact the Office of Regional Programs at programs@vassar.edu.