Editorial
Mostafavi and the Great Glass Elevator
Deconstructing Milstein
September 12, 2007 - 12:00amA recent foul-up in Sibley Hall derailed a portion of the Architecture, Art and Planning's student body to a downtown facility on a street called Esty. (We’ve never heard of it either — and we work downtown.) The cause of this exodus? The geniuses on the Hill seemed to think it wise to inconvenience everyone by building an elevator in Sibley right when classes began.
While this handicapped elevator needed to be constructed for the architecture program to remain accredited, the project may prove to be a foreshock for the greater trouble that looms ahead: the controversial construction of Milstein Hall.
With shots being fired on as many as three fronts — from the City, the University and the student body — Battleship Milstein’s descent is promising to be anything but gentle, especially with former Dean Mostafavi’s sudden departure from the helm.
In preparation for these seismic shakeups, the University needs to reassure students and faculty that it has an effective and prudent plan in place for the long voyage. So far, we’re not convinced.
Although University officials are working with architecture students to ameliorate the bad blood over Elevator-gate, this maneuver does little to soften the blow. For the University to dislocate a segment of its population to downtown Ithaca is insulting to the entire campus. Students should not have to spend their time negotiating with higher-ups for essential services like printers, transportation, computers and software licenses.
Interim Architecture Department Chair Mark Cruvellier said that he “thought that students would like the independence” of working off-campus. The reality, however, is that student morale in the architecture college has declined, as the once close-knit community has been fragmented.
The University is about to embark on a titanic $40 million building project. And yet, it can’t seem to adequately deal with the fallout from a single elevator.
Cornell University is a complex web of entities. The health of one part, we suggest, is indicative of the health of the whole. But if the architecture college — one of the University’s marquee assets — could be characterized as “the Sick Man of Cornell,” what does that say about the rest of the University?