Hesburgh Library, the crown jewel of Notre Dame’s modernist phase, is turning 60 this week. As a library regular with zero experience in architectural or aesthetic criticism, I’d like to share my thoughts.
Hesburgh Library looks like an upside-down cardboard refrigerator box, complete with a picture on the side. It would benefit from about five hundred more windows on its three unadorned sides. The one place with both windows and a view, the famous Penthouse, is closed off to students, who are left to choose which windowless study space they like best. The library is one of the most recognizable buildings on campus because it is massive, but also because it is one of the ugliest. I firmly believe that if it weren’t such a massive financial investment, the University would tear it down and build something more artful instead.
This being said, I intend with this article to defend our cardboard box and the era in which it was built. Hesburgh Library is, in many respects, a masterpiece, not because I find it pleasing to the eye but because I respect the attitude of the students and staff who supported the project. To understand what I mean, let’s do a quick refresher on the architectural history of Notre Dame.
The first buildings at Notre Dame, such as the Main Building and Sorin Hall, werebuilt using yellow bricks made from the clay found in St. Mary’s Lake. These buildings were constructed under the leadership of Fr. Edward Sorin in a style reminiscent of European Gothic churches and schools, which was likely the style he had been exposed to growing up. When the brick business shut down, Notre Dame architects used beige bricks and concrete to mimic the color of the original bricks. Buildings from this period, such as Farley Hall and South Dining Hall, continued the traditional Gothic style.
Then, about halfway through the twentieth century, something interesting happened. Campus got modernized — meaning the ornamentation and vaulted ceilings of old were scrapped for right angles and geometric shapes. Under the leadership of Fr. Hesburgh, Notre Dame infamously flirted with brutalism and other modernist styles for some thirty years, constructing all the buildings on campus that I consider to be the ugliest. We have the '60s and '70s to thank for the awkward tallness of Flanner and Grace halls, the glum plainness of North Dining hall and the impressively unpleasant Radiation Laboratory.
Here's a fun fact about this era of Notre Dame architecture: they were planning to tear down the Main Building and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Grace and Flanner Halls were meant to be the first ofeleven identical dorms surrounding a new, space-age chapel. The plan was to usher in a new age of design that would be free of stained glass and the European nostalgia with which Notre Dame was originally built.
Eventually, Notre Dame’s architects turned on their plans. Grace and Flanner turned out to be an eyesore and a disciplinary nightmare, the Space Basilica got scrapped and the old plans for Mod Quad have been the laughingstock of Notre Dame ever since. All the new buildings built after the eighties have been constructed in the Gothic style.
This story may strike the reader as laughable, or as a blight on Notre Dame’s architectural heritage, but it is important to examine the environment in which the Space Basilica was conceived. This is where my defense comes in.
At this time in Notre Dame’s history, a futuristic campus wasn’t even close to the wildest idea being thrown around on campus. Fr. Hesburgh became president, andeverything was changing, for better or for worse. Notre Dame was in the process of becoming one of the world’s premier research universities, exponentially increasing its endowment and expanding the student body. Campus was transitioning from a predominantly white, all-male environment to one that included black students and women. Fr. Hesburgh was marching hand-in-hand with Martin Luther King, Jr., a decision which at the time was revolutionary and controversial. A new architectural aesthetic paired well with the new ideas being thrown around, and a new library was the perfect leader for the project.
The leaders at Notre Dame during the '60s and '70s were not concerned about the way they would be received by future generations or by the rest of the world. Out of sheer audacity, they built a giant convention center that looks like Disney’s Epcot and invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak in it. It was an absurd idea but also a courageous one. That kind of courage is something that I see missing in the Notre Dame of today.
Future generations will not laugh or scoff at the architecture of our generation. They will barely notice it. Each new building, although technically unique in shape and size, does its very best to look exactly like the ones surrounding it. The interiors of the buildings reflect this too: take a stroll through Baumer Hall or Eck Hall of Law and you will find nothing but beige: beige ceilings, beige walls, beige carpets and desks and chairs. To me, this obsession with beige and vaguely gothic uniformity is representative of our failure to envision ourselves as a university of the future. Notre Dame clings to its heritage in an unhealthy way; we look at previous generations of students and administrations and try to emulate them as best we can. Rather than applying Catholic principles and academic disciplines in a way that reflects the changing world around us, we cling to dying ideas and struggle needlessly to preserve traditions that are standing in their graves.
I’m not saying that Notre Dame ought to build something ugly; but asTaylor Swift once wisely said to the graduating class of NYU, “Learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively.” Let’s take this moment in time to celebrate the cringey-ness of Hesburgh Library and the courage of the individuals shameless enough to create it.
Rose is a senior from Buffalo, NY with majors in economics and the Program of Liberal Studies. Her writing interests include ethics, campus culture and the intersection of economics, politics and philosophy. When she's not writing, you can find her reading on the 10th floor of the library, losing intramural basketball games or working at the Law School. You can contact Rose by email at rquiniaz@nd.edu.
