Decadent Design

For over two years, the Design School has been gathering intellectual cobwebs, while the Corporation has been pondering the selection of a new dean. There was a time, not too long ago, when the school was drafting the newest techniques and theories for the nation's architects and regional planners. It was a vigorous school then, constantly moving forward with unique courses and revolutionary projects. But while Dean Hudnut has sat back patiently, starting nothing a new administrator might not want to finish, other Universities have taken over the school's prestige and a steadily mushrooming inflation has made its endowment inadequate. With less money to spend, Hudnut has been slicing away courses and professors. Each year, the Design School's pamphlet of courses becomes thinner and its professors less impressive; still, the school is dipping into the red, and until the new dean steps into his office Design has no way of curbing its losses, except to continue the trend toward mediocrity.

Now, when a new dean does take over, he will find a skeleton of a school. Walter Gropius, who led Design to the pinnacle of architectural prominency, left this year, rather than work with a flimsy budget. Many of the other professors have remained to teach part time only, supplementing small salaries with outside contracts. The rest strain under an unbearably heavy load, leaving no time for research or individual attention for the school's students. No new dean can merely step in and pull the school back together again with one decisive motion; its parts have drifted away, some irretrievably.

Training in Theory

The Design School, as it is now, is hardly worth retaining. The University has always maintained its graduate schools not only to train students in a profession but to add to the discovery of knowledge in the arts and sciences. There are enough trade schools which turn out proficient architects; there is no reason for another at Harvard. There is need, however, for a school which will develop theories to improve architecture and regional planning. Design did this in the past, and so it must in the future, if the University is to continue the school.

The new dean, then, must plan not merely to put his school back on a paying basis; he must work to regain all of the Design School's lost prominence, with the idea in mind that there is no justification for the University's housing a mediocre graduate school. And the dean himself must be a forceful administrator, an academic pioneer, and an efficient fund raiser. It is a combination difficult to find in one man, but without it the school has little chance to become first rate. Besides these qualities, the University would like the dean to be a famous designer, a man like Gropins, who by his name alone could attract attention to a school. Regrettably, an artistic genius is often not a good fund raiser; usually, he has neither the inclination nor talent to search for endowments. Gropins himself, though expected by the University to solicit gifts, was content to spend his time teaching and publicizing modern architecture.

Firebrand and Conservative

Although a long haired designer would probably make a poor dean, he might fit in well as a departmental head. The dean needed for the organization program, however, should be primarily an administrator and a fund raiser, a man with a conservative reputation who has earned the respect of both architects and industrialists. Once he takes over, he must first face the immediate problem of a deficit. There are a number of ways he can go about easing Design's expenses.

The school breaks down into three separate departments, normally and successfully integrated under the general heading of design. A quick glance at endowment funds shows that two of these departments, architecture and landscape architecture, possess over ninety percent of the school's outside funds, while the third, regional planning, can claim only one endowed chair. Regional planning, however, controls a good portion of Design's budget and without it the department would operate at a profit. One may argue that regional planning would fit easily into another department, for instance public administration. Regional planning is not pure design; it combines the principles of space, color, and materials, with the social sciences; economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, and government. A planner must apply all these arts to fill the specific needs of a community.

From Hunt to Littauer

Using this analysis, the University might shift regional planning from Hunt Hall to Littauer. Under the present system, planning students take all of their elective courses in the public administration building. Perhaps, under a new set-up, regional planning might merely move location to a University division better qualified financially to absorb it.

There are, however, a number of important objections to such a plan. Littauer is a general theory school, while regional planning is by necessity specific and practical. In the Design School it supplements the architectural programs, providing a practical outlet for theory. In Littauer, which shuns application, the department would certainly not flourish and might possibly wither completely. Now, regional planning is important to Design's overall program, while it would probably be a dead weight in public administration.

Theory and Practice

Far better than chopping off another vital component of Design, is increasing its research program. The University's policy has been, in the past, to encourage theoretical research, while disdaining specific projects. This rule should move all its classes to Robinson Hall. In many ways, this would be regrettable for both Design and the College; it would deprive undergraduates of a popular concentration and the graduate school of a better trained entering class. But if the Faculty of Arts and Sciences refuses to foot the bill for services rendered, Design can logically cut its undergraduate program, making the school into a financially sound efficient and academically more advanced graduate department.

To revive Design, therefore, the Corporation must choose its dean quickly, mindful that passage of time is decaying the school. And the College must ease the school's immediate deficit, by contributing to the architectural sciences program. Only then will the new dean be ready to begin rebuilding through research projects, fund raising, and finally by securing a faculty which will again pioneer in modern design.