While exploring New York City, you may stumble across a surprising amalgamation of architecture at the Bronx Community College (BCC) campus. The college is perhaps most famous for its Stanford White classical revival buildings. But what grabs many visitors just as much is their striking juxtaposition with the contrasting brutalist buildings designed by Marcel Breuer.
Breuer’s Bronx Community College Campus Buildings
Marcel Breuer designed a total of four brutalist buildings for the Bronx Community College campus in the 1950s and 60s. These include Begrisch Hall, the Colston Residence Hall and Cafeteria, Carl Polowczyk Hall, and Meister Hall.
It made sense to commission an architect with a different style from White’s Gould Memorial Library. Trying to best the library or even equal it would have presented a significant challenge. Instead, the concrete brutalist buildings Breuer designed make bold statements of their own.
David Bady explains, “White’s buildings are all about Order. Sharing a neoclassical design language, they form a hierarchy of size, shape, and position. The large domed library stands on the edge of the campus plateau, flanked by two smaller, identical, rectangular classroom buildings. Slightly down the slope toward the Harlem River, the arc of the Hall of Fame’s roofed colonnade embraces the three. Breuer’s four buildings, on the other hand, abjure rank, alignment, and consistency.”
If you walk to each of these buildings, you will discover that there are two interconnected pairs. Each consists of a large building joined with a smaller building. The idea was to facilitate the flow of foot traffic as students moved through their daily routines.
Although the large, imposing shapes of Breuer’s buildings at the campus make a bold statement on their own, these brutalist structures contain plenty of smaller details that are equally enthralling. Take the textured look of the interior wall above. The angles and lines of the blocks are all emphasized by the way the lighting highlights their contours, creating a stunning sense of depth.
Originally, the New York University (NYU) owned the campus. But they were forced to sell it for financial reasons to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York in 1973. As it turns out, this is probably fortunate. Alexandra Lange at Curbed explains, “Given NYU’s downtown hostility to its midcentury buildings, this is probably excellent protection for the non-landmarked Breuers.”
So, if you are ever in the neighborhood, be sure to swing by the campus to check out all four Breuer buildings. Each brutalist structure’s distinctive character will give you a unique experience of space, geometry, light and mass.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in reading about another Marcel Breuer structure in The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building: Letting In The Light. And of course don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more Atomic Ranch articles and ideas!
