Op-Ed
Enter the Dragon
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The century-old tradition of celebrating Cornell’s Department of Architecture continues today with the parade and incineration of a dragon that first-year architects spent hours constructing. The same man who gave Cornell its first student union is also the father of what had developed into Dragon Day. Sometime during his four years on campus, Willard Straight ’01 organized the first “College of Architecture Day” in a successful attempt to build class unity among architects. For reasons unknown to Cornell historians, Straight chose to hold his celebration on St. Patrick’s Day. Today, Dragon Day continues to fall on or near the holiday of shamrocks, leprechauns, and Guinness.
To mark the first Architecture Day, Willard Straight and his pals adorned Lincoln Hall (Rand Hall did not yet exist) with shamrocks, green banners and other St. Patrick’s Day décor. By 1920, the architects had become more ambitious and incorporated a parade into their celebration. That same year, according to the alumni website, Willard Straight’s widow received a letter saying “a 12 foot St. Patrick was painted and hung on the side of the building with a great 20 foot long serpent chasing after him. In the afternoon, these were taken down, and carried in solemn procession around the campus.”
Though some version of Dragon Day has taken place most years since Straight started the tradition, a few years have passed with out celebrating the residents of Rand. Cornell’s third president, Jacob Gould Schurman, abolished the festivities at some point during his reign from 1892 to 1920 because he felt the celebration offended Catholics on campus. A few decades later, a Sun article dated March 17, 1954 reported “St. Pat’s Day loss … No Dragon to Appear on Quad.” The author of the article wrote that the College of Architecture cancelled Dragon Day “in light of the current political scene.” The article went on to quote an unofficial statement from the College of Architecture which read “[c]hasing snakes on such an insignificant scale would appear frustrating, compared to the success professional scalp-hunters have had with more pertinent dangers.” The “more pertinent dangers” the statement refers to are, presumably, related to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) red-baiting.
More recently, from 1990-92 the University officially cancelled Dragon Day. The University had become frustrated with the pranks and vandalism of Dragon Day that were largely the result of an architecture-engineering rivalry. The engineers of the Phoenix Society see it as their duty to ward off the architects’ dragon and at times this resulted in a heated battle. While the Phoenix Society’s attempts to slay the dragon have been weak in recent years, the competition frequently resulted in trips to the emergency room during the late ’80s and early ’90s. (Legend has it, frozen fruit flung from lacrosse sticks caused some of these emergency room trips.) The official cancellation of Dragon Day didn’t stop first year architects though and dragons indeed paraded out of Rand Hall during these three years. By 1993, the University had re-sponsored Dragon Day, deciding it was better to have someone involved to manage the day than to let it be a total free-for-all.
The 1950s saw Architecture Day transform into something similar to the Dragon Day of more modern times. Again according to the alumni website, Cornell historians believe that the term “Dragon Day” was coined sometime during the 50s when the day became more focused on the parade and destruction of the dragon. The abovementioned Sun article from 1954 also hints at the alcohol consumption that—at least for architecture students—continues to be not-so-covertly linked to Dragon Day. The 1954 article reported that the dragon “[o]n occasion…has been known to carry on his back large quantities of dragon milk, which looks and smells disarmingly like green beer.” Bottoms up!
One Dragon Day of particular note took place in 1966. During that year, according to a Daily Sun article written at time of the event, a “specially imported” pig that had been painted green ran squealing into the Ivy Room during the lunch rush. The article continues, saying a “food fight ensued wreaking havoc and forcing the Ivy Room to close for an hour to be cleaned up.” A patrolman got even nailed in the face with a plate of mashed potatoes!
A much more somber Dragon Day occurred two years later in 1968. As the war in Vietnam continued to escalate, architecture students organized an “involvement march” led by a black dragon. Although Dragon Day is usually a right of passage for first-year architecture students, the 1968 Dragon Day was led by upperclassmen. Shortly after Dragon Day ’68, a Sun reporter interviewed alum Barry Poskanzer ’67, one of the Dragon Day organizers that year. Poskanzer told the Sun, “remember, the march isn’t anti- or pro-war, just pro involvement.” Poskanzer went on to say that the architecture students “didn’t feel the usual stuff was appropriate or in keeping with the times.”
1968 was not the first year architects used their day to express their views. In 1934, architecture students celebrated the repeal of Prohibition by building a paper-mache beer stein. Most recently, in 1994, the architects choose “Fall of Rome” as their theme to protest the possible cancellation of the popular AAP program, Cornell in Rome.
Brian Beeners, the supervisor of technical labs in AAP and the official Dragon Day advisor, is considered the resident expert on Dragon Day by many architecture students. Beeners has been around Rand for 19 Dragon Days and remembers them all quite well. His favorite dragon, he says, paraded down East Avenue just two years ago. As upperclassmen may recall, the dragon of 2006 was a whimsical creature emerging out of a model Rand Hall. Beeners thought the addition of Rand Hall was clever and was quite impressed with the architects’ use of puppetry.
So how long does it take to build a dragon? The answer, according to Beeners, is usually under a week. When I visited the shop in Rand this past Sunday, the architects had just begun construction! Beeners didn’t tip me off to what this year’s Dragon Day will bring … but join the crowd on East Avenue today and you can see for yourself!
Sarah Olesiuk is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be contacted at solesiuk@cornellsun.com. Archive This! appears alternate Fridays.
Well dang!
Dragon Day sounds like a hoot! Can't wait!