Alfred Lerner Hall
Encyclopedia
Alfred Lerner Hall is the student center or students' union
Student activity center
A student activity center is a type of building found on university campuses. In the United States, such a building is more often called a student union, student commons, or student center...

 of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. It is named for Al Lerner
Al Lerner
Alfred "Al" Lerner was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was best known as the Chairman of the Board of credit card giant MBNA and the owner of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League...

, who financed part of its construction. Situated on the university's historic Morningside Heights campus in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the building, designed by deconstructivist architect Bernard Tschumi
Bernard Tschumi
Bernard Tschumi is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Born of French and Swiss parentage, he works and lives in New York and Paris. He studied in Paris and at ETH in Zurich, where he received his degree in architecture in 1969...

, then dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City, also known simply as GSAPP, is regarded as one of the most important and prestigious architecture schools in the world...

, opened in 1999, replacing the previous student center, Ferris Booth Hall, which stood from 1960-1996. It attempts to both conform to its context of neoclassical McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead & White was a prominent American architectural firm at the turn of the twentieth century and in the history of American architecture. The firm's founding partners were Charles Follen McKim , William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White...

 buildings as well as break out of their mold. In so doing, Lerner Hall features redbrick cladding and proportions that hold the street wall of university buildings along Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

, but reveals a vast glass wall to the campus fabricated by Eiffel Constructions Metalliques, descendant of the firm that built the Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...

. Behind the wall are a series of escalating ramps that give the building a unified sense of space and are meant to act as a social meeting place much like the steps of Low Memorial Library
Low Memorial Library
The Low Memorial Library is the administrative center of Columbia University. Built in 1895 by University President Seth Low in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low, and financed with $1 million of Low's own money due to the recalcitrance of university alumni, it is the focal point and most...

.

Lerner Hall features both a cinema and auditorium named for Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge
Roone Pickney Arledge, Jr. was an American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until several years before his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main television networks, NBC and CBS, in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.-Early...

, a Columbia alumnus with a distinguished career in sports broadcasting and television news. The building also contains eateries, performance space, student club space, lounges, and administrative offices.

Criticism

The building began receiving harsh criticism even before it was completed. The escalating ramps have never met their purpose as a social meeting place, instead taking up valuable space and slowing movement between floors. Due to space constraints, few student activities have individual offices, the vast majority receiving only locker space. The layout--particularly in the administrative areas of the building--has been described as labyrinthine. Neighbors protested that the building serves to further wall off Columbia from the community. Architecture critics have lambasted the building for managing to be simultaneously dull and offensive, and failing to conform to the beaux arts style of the surrounding campus.

Traditions

Lerner Hall is home to social events throughout the academic year. The most significant, perhaps, are the Varsity Show, a satirical musical about university life, and Glass House Rocks, in which Lerner (the "glass house") is transformed into a giant party space (the event takes its name from the former television series School House Rock).

Notable events

In 2005, Lerner Hall was the site of a prank by the university's Senior Society of Sachems, which decorated the ramps overnight with saffron colored banners imitating The Gates
The Gates
The Gates was a site-specific work of art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists installed 7,503 vinyl "gates" along 23 miles of pathways in Central Park in New York City. From each gate hung a panel of deep saffron-colored nylon fabric...

, an artistic installation by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo and Jeanne-Claude were a married couple who created environmental works of art...

, then on display in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

.

In film and television

  • In the 2003 film Anger Management
    Anger Management
    Anger Management is a 2003 slapstick comedy film starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, directed by Peter Segal and written by David S. Dorfman...

    , Lerner Hall's facade was used to represent a hospital in Boston.

  • An episode of the Comedy Central
    Comedy Central
    Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

     show Stella
    Stella (TV series)
    Stella was a short-lived television series that originally ran from June 28, 2005 to August 30, 2005 on the American television channel Comedy Central, created by and starring Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain, the three members of the sketch comedy troupe of the same name and...

    features the ramps and a lounge as an airport terminal.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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