As if the controversial Wis. Union "renovations" weren't enough, the UW Alumni Association has just announced that the Union parking lot, concrete pier, and everything else along the lake will be torn up too, to be replaced with a grassy, utopian plaza intended to "honor contributions by alumni". That would be cash contributions of some $8 million. Obviously those alumni don't need to be honored. They need to pay more taxes. This multimillion$ project is on top of dozens of other major building projects at UW-Madison. It's part of the Campus Master Plan to tear down more perfectly good buildings, e.g. Humanities, Van Hise, Engineering Research, and replace them.
Wherever the money for this billion dollar butt-fuck is coming from (rich people? the state?-hardly, seg fees?) it could be going to a hundred other things that are more important, like health care, cutting UW tuition, better instructors, more support for TAs, road improvement, toxic waste cleanup, alternative energy, ETC. You name it.
But that's not how the world works. Instead, some people rip others off, get rich, and then donate money for "utopian plazas" or other projects (read: buildings) that will carry their names. Meanwhile, overpaid administrators skip their meds and dream up shit like this, even as Wisconsin cuts school funding faster than any other state. UW's funding is being cut by some $250 million.
Note the glass skybox (theatre addition) present in the architectural rendering--plus, motorboat parking!
Well soo-prise, soo-prise! In a pincer move, the sanitizing of the Memorial Union lakefront is complete. What's not pictured are the UW Police & Security manning the checkpoints from Langdon and Park to ensure that only Union Members and their guests are present. Actually, not a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteIt seems kind of frivolous given that monies could be spent on scholarships to offset rising costs of education. Hey, will the new construction add some well needed security cameras a la Union South?
Two corrections:
ReplyDelete-Anybody that has ever been in Humanities would struggle to describe it as "perfectly good." It contains some of the worst classrooms I've ever been in.
-The money for the building may be coming from a capital expenditures budget. Bizarrely, this means that it is money that cannot be spent on desperately needed things, like instructors or class supplies, because they fall into the category of operating expenses. This is among the screwier rules common in public institutions.
That said, the glass box is pretty dumb. I hope that idea doesn't stick around too long.
Humanities is in my opinion the most interesting building on campus. It is an example of "brutalism", a modern architecture style that arose in the 1960s (see wkipedia). This of course is why it's scheduled to be demolished and replaced with a boring red brick building. Yeah, not the greatest classrooms but not the worst on campus either.
ReplyDeleteCompare Humanities to the new University Square which looks like a southeast Asian housing project. All part of the gradual decay of UW-Madison.
Pragmatically, there won't be any Hoofer keelboats anymore except for those smallish ones that can be trailered into the lake at motorboat launches if they remove the alumni pier and fill in more of Lake Mendota's lakebed.
ReplyDeleteCommodore's Cup spent more than four thousand bucks on booze. Anybody want to guess how much of that wound up in the livers of the usual suspects?
ReplyDeleteOMG, good point.... where will they set the crane for lift-in if that drawing is correct?!
ReplyDeleteAs for booze, one can easily drink $15 worth in an evening. Anyone who's ever gone out to a bar knows that. C-cup was 9 or 10 days long, so that's $150/person, times 50 or so participants, not counting the professional alcoholics in the club who can drink much more.... Yeah, if anything, $4000 seems low.