Templeton is an inexcusably nasty building
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Templeton is an inexcusably nasty building
by Katy DavidsonWhy is the most-used building at Lewis & Clark College the most ugly, confusing, and uninviting place to be on campus?
I was thinking this one day as I was stumbling through Templeton Student Center, but then I became frightened and lost in one of its infamous poorly-lit corridors. I think I am not alone when I proclaim that Templeton, the enormous piece of white matter lodged into the earth on top of Palatine Hill, is an inexcusably nasty thing.
Our student center has undoubtedly been a sore spot on campus for many years, but my eyes were recently opened to Templeton's true nature when my Scotland overseas group discussed its architectural "merits" during an orientation meeting. We were given an assignment to draw out the floorplan and discuss why the building was designed the way it was.
After a slow, detailed walk-through of the building, negative feelings about Templeton began to well up inside of me like boiling magma.
First of all, I truly believe Templeton does not have an official entrance. The one that runs between the bookstore and the Trail Room may be the most arguable case, but it looks more like the front door of a poorly-planned Marshall's department store. It is hard to find, it leads you directly into a dark hallway, and its brownish/gray carpet is always a flooded, sloshy stew.
The entrances by the mail room and the information desk are even harder to find, and just as low-class. Funny enough, the most logical place to have a grand entrance (by Fields Dining Room on the third floor) only has a white door without handles and a bench well-known in the smoking world for lighting up and chatting with Bon employees.
The location of the information desk is also a source of endless trouble. Do you remember the first time you ever came to LC? When you wanted to find out where things were located on campus, what was the most logical place to ask? The information desk. Unfortunately, many campus visitors spend their first five to six hours seeking the information desk itself. It is hidden at the end of a series of dark hallways from inside Templeton, and is only accessible from the outside through another obscure upstairs entrance. These same confused visitors may also notice, if they ever discover how to get inside the building, that there are no internal directional signs whatsoever.
Objective observers will discover something funny about the hallway by the mailboxes: the set of stairs which falls smack dab in the middle of the well-traveled path. Between class periods, when the masses head to Templeton to check their mail, this hallway becomes extremely crowded. Instead of harboring a constant flow of people, however, the corridor becomes jammed. People are forced to wait for others to pass so they don't slam their heads on the descending plates of metal.
What is even funnier than the actual placement of the stairs are the protective measures someone devised to keep people from bumping their heads. The stairs at eye-level have been covered with protective padding and some plants have been carefully placed underneath the steps to steer fast-movers clear of danger.
One of Templeton's biggest mysteries is its central courtyard. Chances are even the select few that have happened to catch a glimpse of its outdoor charm have never ventured out into it. The courtyard shares one of Templeton's problems itself: its lack of an apparent entrance.
I am perplexed at how much of my school day is spent walking down one of Templeton's dungeon-like hallways. What is the best way to get from the information desk to the Trail Room? It's down a dark corridor, underneath a set of enormous pull-down metal doors, by a set of freight elevators, through a dangerous intersection, and past another set of black stairs that lead who-knows-where. These seem like things someone would find behind the scenes of Costco or Cub Foods, not in a main hallway of a student center.
Finally, one might think Templeton would attempt to lessen the effects of bad design by sprucing up the interior. But, au contraire, Templeton is painted with the dirtiest, puke-colored shade of blue I have ever encountered. Also, to make this paint job appear 150 percent nastier, the building is "lit" with infrequent fluorescent bulbs. The furniture, especially the colored chairs and tables in the Trail Room, gives off a surreal 1983 airport lounge look.
Though Templeton finds minor redemption in its large windows in the Council Chamber, the Trail Room, and Fields Dining Room, it is truly a labyrinth in structure and a dungeon in interior design. The building is scheduled to be torn down in the next ten years as part of LC's master plan. I strongly encourage this action and personally offer my services for its destruction.
