What Ramps!?

A few weeks ago I found myself at Princeton University for my twentieth college reunion. As I wound my way from the train station toward Poe Field, past what seemed like nothing but construction, I looked left at a white building with all sorts of geometric things going on and thought, oh, that’s the Steven Holl. I say this not to brag about how good I am at recognizing buildings, but just to say that Steven Holl’s work is kind of extremely recognizable, almost Libeskind-ian in some ways in its adherence to funny angles and weird cutouts and just a lot of wacky stuff going on. I was like, oh, yep, that’s the Holl, and then I thought about an article I wrote a hundred years ago about his dorm for MIT, whose principal idea was “porosity” and which, it turned out, most of the residents didn’t really like. The curves on the inside were bad, and everyone’s extralong twin bed didn’t fit very well. So, as I walked to wrist-banding/check-in, just across from the new Yeh College (equally recognizably designed by Deborah Berke Partners, which should never be wrecked, in my opi…