Silver Residence Hall at NYU Uptown: A Bridge to Co-ed Housing

Perched on a cliff above the Harlem River, New York University’s uptowncampus in the Bronx captures a pivotal moment in architectural design,and student life. Designed by Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer in 1956 andopened in 1961, the 600-bed structure was the first co-ed dormitory atNYU. Its architecture reveals reluctant co-educationalization and faith inthe power of architecture to shape student behavior.Julius Silver Residence Center was a seven-story high-rise, shaped to curvealong the river. A community hall sat on relatively high ground, but thedormitory was in a deep well, with one of its levels below grade, and threedorm levels below the floor of the community hall. The community hall wasdesignated as the space for men and women to socialize. From there, theplan directed men and women into their own separate pedestrian bridges,which in turn led to the male and female ends of the slab. Inside themen’s section, the services (stairs, elevators, and bathrooms) were in thecenter, bounded on both sides by parallel corridors. The women’s side wasa more typical double-loaded corridor plan. It offered more privacy, becauseevery two bedrooms shared one bathroom, and the bathrooms were tuckedinside the rooms. It was at that time taken for granted that women neededmore space and privacy than men. [Bowling Green State Colleges, Historyof Student Affairs Archives, Association of College and University HousingOfficers, MS 487, Box 1, Conference Proceedings: ACUHO, First AnnualConference, 1949, p. 17.] The New York Herald blared the headline: “NYUon Heights to go Co-Ed: Men and Women will be housed in New Dormitory.”In contrast, an internal NYU publication soothed nerves: “Rigid division andcontrol will of course be maintained.” [Clippings file, Archives of AmericanArt, Breuer Collection frame 1212.]To some viewers, Breuer’s buildings may seem to make no attempt to fittheir surroundings, especially the aggressively sculptural concrete lecturehall that sits just beyond the community center. But “context” is an elusiveconcept. Breuer wrote: “We ‘modern’ architects don’t hate tradition – theopposite is true.” [Jones, Cranston. Marcel Breuer: Buildings and Projects,1921-1961 (New York: Praeger, 1962) 257.] The use of Roman yelloworangebrick (the same material as the Beaux-Arts buildings) was enough tocreate a dialogue among the structures.This paper relies on original research conducted at the Archives of AmericanArt, New York University, and the History of Student Affairs Archive in BowlingGreen, Ohio in order to explore Breuer’s co-ed dormitory as a microcosmof modernist campus design. It is one case study from a book-in-progresstitled: Live and Learn: The Architectural and Social History of Dormitoriesand Residence Hall. The central research questions are: why have Americaneducators believed for so long, and with such fervor, that one needs tohouse students in order to educate them? And, more specifically, what isthe role played by architecture in legitimizing that idea?

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1