Comments on: The Architecture of Legal Education

By: mlr

mlr — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:56:18 +0000

I recall during the Duke Law rennovation a quote along the lines of the building looked like a high school on the outskirt of the campus. Now the law school blends the aesthtic charm of the West Campus (Gothic Stone) with the an architecture that seems to suggest its visionary and clean. Its a very nice combo.

As to the question at hand, the Law school sits with a grouping of the other professional schools, down the way from the Business school, and across the street from Public Policy and Environmental Sciences and is not in the center of the quad; however, given the possible locations that the law School could have ended up at, its closer than say the undergrad east campus and reasonably close to the pulse of the University.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 03:17:41 +0000

While Penn’s law school isn’t exactly in the ‘heart’ of campus it could perhaps be described in the lungs or perhaps the liver. It’s certainly closer to the heart than is, say, the Wharton Death Star building or the chemistry department. It’s also got some nice architecture and some bad parts. There is a fair amount of internaction w/ the philosophy dept., urban studies, Wharton, and others. I don’t know of the proximity causes this but it surely makes it easier than it would be at, say, Georgetown or George Mason or somewhere like that.

By: Rick Garnett

Rick Garnett — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 03:12:17 +0000

The law building at Notre Dame is smack-dab in the middle of the campus, and has — like much of the campus in that sector — the collegiate-Gothic thing going. This is, I think, a good thing. That said, many of the faculty believe that the law school would be better off in a satellite (i.e., “with parking”) location.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:35:55 +0000

Aesthetically, I love the whole wood paneling, Persian rug, colonial Williamsburg thing. But I also think my firm in DC was a bit more “honest” about its place in the world given its spare, glass/stone/steel approach.

My law school home (SHLS), located in an office building near a train station, manages at once to be starkly utilitarian and yet to accommodate some aesthetic ideals (with lots of sunlight in the atrium and visiting art exhibits).

Finally, I must recommend Alain de Botton’s Architecture of Happiness for anyone interested in the topic.