Warwick University's Architecture...

[cdave]

...seen through the eyes of PhD comics' guide to University Architecture.

The university was founded to late (and too far outside Coventry) to be considered a true Red Brick Wonderland, but passes PhD's definition, due to the libraries frequent "complaining of being underfunded".

No gothic frippery at Warwick. Not being Cambridge or Oxford is one of it's selling points. People have dropped out of Cambridge to come to Warwick.

By era, and style, Warwick is most firmly in the Neo-Penal style. There's a persistent rumour that Cryfield accommodation was based on the blueprint for a Swedish Women's Prison. Apparently the corridors are so narrow to prevent rioting.

The newer buildings aren't quite guilty of Modernism. If you haven't seen it there's a great scene in this comedy, about a day in the life of the relocated maths department, where they open the fixed shutters.

Where they've really made an effort to catch up to Modernism with the art. The outside of campus is littered with pieces of modern sculpture. From the legacy of red warwick to the kissing penguins; from the occasionaly rotating koan to the stone turd, I love them all.

Lastly theat leaves the campus tower. Whose part will have to played by the arts centre, Warwick failing to have a standalone tower. It remains one of the few places you can see the Warwick Coat of Arms, as "should no longer be part of the University’s logo or used alongside the text 'The University of Warwick'." It fell out of favour while I was there in favour of a more modern swooshy one. Bleugh.

{Edit:'s/Crest/Coat of Arms/g' thanks makyo}

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

It remains one of the few places you can see the Warwick Crest, as "should no longer be part of the University’s logo or used alongside the text 'The University of Warwick'." It fell out of favour while I was there in favour of a more modern swooshy one. Bleugh.
This is one of my pet peeves. The University should know better than to call it a 'crest' - it's a coat of arms (the crest is just the bit right at the top). But also, and more irritatingly, is the deprecation of heraldry in favour of expensive, transitory logos such as that used by the Conference Office (and which was amusingly summarised as "two fat men shouting at each other" by the esteemed Hugh Anchor). I don't think the Warwick arms are a particularly well-designed example, being rather too busy for my liking, but I do think they carry overtones of academic tradition and solidity that are missing from the modern swooshy logo (which, by the way, looks to me like it was ripped off from York's, and thus carries overtones of plagiarism and bandwagon-jumping).

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Apparently, a few years ago, the university quietly removed the coat of arms from degree certificates. This resulted in a number of complaints from graduates who had been expecting something a little more august than a 10m swimming certificate for all their hard work. So the arms were replaced for the next batch of graduations, and (I believe) all affected graduates invited to exchange their certificates for proper ones.

[cdave]

Thanks for that. I thought it was called the coat of arms, but fell into the branding departments trap.

The great coat cull was early in 2002 I think, so I was the second year after it. I was please to see that mine had one. I would have been amongst the complaining voices had it not.

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

In my day we called that era of uni architecture "white tile". There was us, UEA, Keele, and a few other rural campus universities. The Rootes tiles all started to fall off and hit people on the head, which is why there's all that white metal cladding. You used to hear an occasional thud as a tile fell off and hit the inside of the cladding.

As one of the earlier occupants of Cryfield Hall (1976), I can testify that the corridors may have stopped riots, but the water fights were quite spectacular. Until they put bars on the kitchen windows, and you couldn't dive out of them anymore.

The TOIL statue was particularly loved by pranksters. The best one was a fake hanging, with the body swinging slowly in an early morning November fog.

[cdave]

One thing I wished I'd done is follow up on my plan to by: some red fabric, some white fabric, some fishing line, and weights; and turn the Koan into a big Santas hat.

Cryfield

[(Anonymous)]

I certainly don't remember any riots whilst I was in Cryfield. I did think that the roof would make a good sledge run if it ever snowed. Unfortunately/fortunately I never had the opportunity to test this theory out.

Ah the kissing penguins, I remember many a night standing outside the union watching drunken idiots try to climb them. At least one person managed to make it almost to the top, but he fell off. Fortunately he was too drunk to be seriously hurt.