Science is ugly

by Allen B. Downey
(while I was at Wellesley)

Why is the science building always the ugliest building on campus? It's not just Wellesley. I can name a dozen liberal arts colleges that would like to airbrush the science building out of their otherwise postcard-perfect campus photos.

One of the reasons is history. After World War II enrollments in the sciences increased, forcing many school to move the sciences into new buildings. Many were built between 1960 and 1980, an aggressively experimental period in American architecture. Ask a scientist what happens when you perform a lot of experiments: you get a few moderate successes and lots of spectacular failures.

Another reason is physics. I don't mean the discipline, I mean the laws. It turns out that those silver pipes on the roof aren't decorative. Scientists like to play with fire, and combustion has unpleasant byproducts. So to some degree, we bring bad architecture on ourselves, but we do like our toys.

But the ultimate reason is that architects are not scientists. In many ways they are the opposite of scientists, and they seem to have funny ideas about what scientists like. Do they really think that we enjoy looking at waste water in transparent pipes, or are they getting even with us because we got jobs when we graduated? For the record, scientists like old wood and Oriental rugs, just like everyone else.

Unfortunately, funny-looking science buildings are not just an aesthetic problem. They are an academic problem. On many campuses, as at Wellesley, the science building is far from the campus core. Does anyone else think it's strange that the _Academic_ Quad includes the administration but not the sciences? The sciences are the apostate liberal art.

I can't help thinking that this distance contributes to the antipathy many students feel toward the sciences. Architecture reinforces their sense that the sciences are alien, bizarre, and---literally---distant.

This year's commencement speaker drove the point home when she bragged, to an audience that audibly approved, that she has not stepped foot in the Science Center since her campus tour four years ago. Why should she, when the sciences are so far out of the collective sight, and mind, of the community?

At the same time, enrollments in the sciences are increasing, creating a division in the community between students who "live" at the Science Center and the denizens of the Quad. Students of the liberal arts are supposed to have broad interests, exploring all areas of knowledge with at least the same curiosity if not the same enthusiasm. The "othering" of the sciences undermines this ideal.

Is there anything we can do to counteract the consequences of ugly science buildings, or is architecture destiny?