The Maison Louis Carre is a house that was designed by Alvar Aalto in 1956, yet again it is a beautiful house that incorporates nature and looks inviting just like many of the other buildings by Alvar Aalto. This house looks to me like a house version of the church Santa Maria Assunta which was one of my favorite buildings I have seen since starting this class in August so to have something like this but in a house form is amazing. Again Alvar Aalto seems to take the surrounding nature of his building and incorporate it into his design, this building looks like it belongs in its environment and that it’s not just there. [1] “This long path, as well as its distance away from Paris, gives the house a private, sanctuary-like feeling. Aalto specifically placed the house at the top of the site, providing ideal views to the south. The main exterior feature is the gradual sloping of the roof, which almost appears as an extension of the hill below.” The private aspect of this house is a lot like the other house he build called the Villa Mairea, it makes the overall feeling of the house feel quiet and peaceful. Again in this design, we see Alvar Aalto use the grass stair design that I like, he used this design on another project called the saynatsalo town hall, the way the grass stairs make it look like your gradually walking from nature to the house and vise versa is one of my favorite things he does, Alvar Aalto has done a lot of great work and Finland should consider themselves lucky to have so many great works still standing in their country, or France who still has the MAISON LOUIS CARRÉ which is the last standing building in France by Alvar Aalto, I have liked looking at his work and one day hope to see it in person.

[1] https://www.archdaily.com/356209/ad-classics-maison-louis-carre-alvar-aalto

photo from https://www.e-architect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/maison-louis-carre-france-alvar-aalto.jpg

Villa Mairea is a guest house designed by Alvar Aalto, it was built in 1938 and finished in 1939, this guest house was built in Finland by a wealthy couple, the building seems to incorporate nature into its design while also using wood as one of the main design. [1] “It is a layout which automatically created a semi-private enclosure to one side, and a more exclusive, formal edge to confront the public world on the other. The lawn and the swimming pool are situated in the angle of the L, with a variety of rooms overlooking them. Horizontals and overhangs in the main composition echo the ground plane, and the curved pool weds the nearby forest topography. In contrast to these softening devices, the main facade has a more rigid, formal mood, and even possesses a canopy restated in a garden pergola vocabulary of bindings, poles and slats. The interiors of the Villa Mairea are richly articulated in wood, stone and brick.” This house is one that I like a lot because of the way he incorporated nature and the wood design, having lots of plants and trees and grass all around the walls of the house makes it look and feel peaceful. The way he uses wood to match the environment makes this house feel like it belongs there and not like it is out of place for a building in the woods. I like the shape he went with the L, it makes one side of the house look inviting and open for those who pass by but completely private for those on the other side, this is defiantly a house that I imagine retiring in someday, everything about it looks warm inviting and peaceful, this seems to be a trend with the Alvar Aalto and I really like it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Mairea

Photo from https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eYOiW9NzwmE/V5cusB17uWI/AAAAAAAAGss/6AjmciXmTngqYP7LypPibrGNrah9nWenwCLcB/s1600/1149.JPG

Säynätsalo town hall is the town hall designed by Alvar Aalto in 1949 to serve as the small Finnish town’s town hall and civic center. [1] “The civic complex was to comprise a council chamber, local government offices, a community library, staff apartments, and retail space that would ultimately allow the functions of the town hall to expand beyond their original parameters. Aalto’s winning proposal for the project follows the traditional European court-and-tower model of a civic center. The complex consists of two wood-framed brick buildings: the rectangular library block and the U-shaped government building.” This building reminds me very much like the buildings here at OU. The red brick and the European court-and-tower model closely resemble the Cherokee gothic that we have here on campus, and as someone who grew up in Norman their whole life I have a slight preference to this kind of style which is very similar to Säynätsalo town hall. The next thing I like about this is that Alvar seems to include nature into his design, he has it in the the exterior going up certain walls and incorporated in the stairs. Both of the brick and nature styles are very warm and inviting to me and it shows that you don’t need to have some big and flashy building to be exciting.

[1] https://www.archdaily.com/783392/ad-classics-saynatsalo-town-hall-alvar-aalto?ad_medium=gallery

Photos: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/S%C3%A4yn%C3%A4tsalon_kunnantalo_2.jpg/1200px-S%C3%A4yn%C3%A4tsalon_kunnantalo_2.jpg

https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/3187/design-stories-saynatsalo-14-bb912945-48af-4d18-9159-dfba113507f0_s1260x0_q80_noupscale.jpg

Alvar Aalto Was a Finnish architect who lived from 1898 to 1979 and was the architect of many different beautiful buildings, one of which is the Santa Maria Assunta located in central Italy. The design of the church was done from 1965-1966 and the Santa Maria Assunta began being built in 1975 and was later finished in 1978, the church was completed one year after Aaltos death so he never got to see it finished. [1] “The church is structured by six asymmetric prefabricated concrete frames, or arches in descending size towards the chancel. They support a series of prefabricated light scoops, which are conic sections, giving the church its distinctive exterior profile, which some liken to an abstraction of the local Apennine mountains. The facades are faced with mortared stone, and the roof is copper sheeting. The interior is mostly whitewashed plaster, which advantageously reflects northern light brought in from the scoops above. Wooden Pews, each slightly shorter in length than the preceding one as they approach the chancel are placed on the terra cotta tile floors. The altar is unadorned and hewn from a single block of marble.” This church is probably one of my favorite architecture buildings I have got to see in this class. everything about it is just so remarkable, the outside looks old but not worn out, the stone used looks very smooth and appealing, and the inside is my favorite part, I really love the all-white walls and the way the natural light hits the room from the windows at the top right and the interconnecting arches going across the ceiling is beautiful. This church seems to be very minimalistic and small, growing up a Christian I have gone to a small church like this in size so it seems very familiar to me, though the church I went to was not as beautiful as this one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_Assunta,_Riola_di_Vergato

Photos: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Riola1_%28cropped%29.jpg

https://www.floornature.com/media/photos/1/14244/03_interno_docu-film_ronchi-corradi_full.jpg

Dale Hall is a building that I do not have good memories of, I have had a handful of classes there some of which are good and some of which are not as good, all together the building has had a negative impact on me. The first class I ever had in Dale Hall was communications, it was my freshmen year and it was my very first college course, not counting the ones I took at high school. Growing up in Norman near campus Dale hall is a building that was always used as a landmark when talking about directions, only I didn’t know the name at the time so it was just the tall red building on Lindsey Street, and after seeing it so much I began to forget about it. On my first day at the University of Oklahoma, I had my very first class in Dale Hall for communications and when I walked into the inside I was very excited because it was my first day of college and it was exciting the building wasn’t like high school at all it had two stories and giant lecture rooms at the time I was very impressed. But just like the outside of the building, I began to forget the inside too, I can’t say I had my worst classes in Dale in fact I’ve had some of my best, but something about the style of the building the old wood and dark and uninviting environment made me grow to not like the building, the overall feeling was negative and the more I had classes in there the more I hated having to go there.

Dale Hall was built in 1967 and was named after Edward Everett Dale, the head of the history department from 1924 to 1942. The building is a tall red tower made of brick and concrete and has striped windows going up the building, I don’t mind the red brick and personally I think the concrete looks great with brick so the style is pretty unique. The most unique part about the Dale Hall is the top of the building that has a top that shrinks and is surrounded by windows and the topped with a flat concrete looking roofing. I think the top of Dale Hall is its most unique part, inside you can look all around the campus, in fact it might be one of my favorite parts of campus is that room, its the only room in the building that doesn’t give me a negative feeling.

Dale Hall has impacted me negatively because of it interior design and overall flow of the building. I still think that the top of Dale Hall is a great place to go and if you haven’t been there before then I highly encourage you to go. I think one of the reasons I like the top so much despite not liking the building is because of the view from the top, there is an old saying of a man who ate at the top of the Eiffel Tower every day because he hated the look of the Effel Tower and it was the only place he could eat in the city that didn’t have a view of the tower, which is kinda like how I feel about the top of Dale Hall. If Dale Hall were to redo the inside and make the overall atmosphere more inviting and bright then I would probably rank it higher but since it does not I hated having classes there giving me a negative impact with the classes and building.

Retrived picture from http://fall2017.thedude.oucreate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/dall-tower.jpg

The physical Science Center is my least liked building on OU’s campus and not just because it’s the ugliest building on campus but also because it had the biggest negative impact on my college life. The Physical Science Center is where all of my Math classes were located and even thinking back about it now makes me feel anxious. Every time I would have to go into that building I felt terrible because I absolutely hated my math class and I wanted to be as far away as possible. My math classes were probably the thing I hated most about my college experience thus far and all the anxiety and stress I got from having to take those classes I’ve put those feeling onto the building.

The Physical Science Building was built in 1969 by architects Dow Gumerson and Donald Mccormick and was originally supposed to be three buildings built along elm street but this never came to be. The building is very bland and grey and has almost no texture or design for it, it is like they went out to meet the bare minimum and once they got it they wanted to add no more to it. I’ve been told that since the building was built at the end of the 60s and early 70s, a time where a lot of college students were protesting, so taking that into mind they made the building to be riot proof, I don’t know how true that statement is but from the looks of the building I guess I could see it, the long walls on all sides of the building and what looks like pretty cave-like entrances, I don’t know what a building needs to be riot proof but it looks like it meets the standards if that’s true then I find it to be a very cool fact but not cool enough to move it from the bottom of my buildings list.

The Physical Science Center will forever be the worst looking building on campus, even worse than dale but the thing that makes me hate it so much is the emotional stress the classes I took there did to me. The math classes were definitely my most challenging classes and I had to study for them as I’ve never studied before and the fact that I didn’t like the subject made it even worse and because the classes were in the Physical Science Center I hated going in there, I would walk around the building listening to music procrastinating every minute until I had to go inside. The idea that the building looks as bad as it does because it was designed to be riot-proof is pretty cool but that doesn’t change the fact that the building looks like a big grey prison. The Physical Science Center will always be my least liked building on campus and it has more to do with the negative impact it left on me than the buildings architecture itself, OU could build an even uglier building right next to the Physical Science Center and I would still hate it more because of the experiences I’ve had with it.

Photo received from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sosbrutalism.org%2Fcms%2F18801332&psig=AOvVaw2F0NtikLcCaN0A1MjSyuoY&ust=1633102553737000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCJD4362Dp_MCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

The Bizzell Memorial Library is by far my favorite building at the University of Oklahoma. It has positively impacted me through the time I have spent studying there. Before college, the only place I ever really studied was at my house. Most of the time, it was in m room and it never was a good place to try and get work done because there was always something to distract me there, so when I first got to college I decided to try out the Bizzell or the “Bizz” and it was amazing it had every different type of study environment you could ever want, dead quiet, semi-quiet, and talkative, and for someone like me who has ADHD and needs to move around a lot while getting work done it is the best place I can go to get work done or study, I’m currently typing this out at the Bizz. The next best thing about the Biz is that there is always someone I know there who I can study with which I find to be nice, I also think the Bizz is the best-looking building on campus, everything about it looks detailed and not bland you don’t find many buildings like it in Oklahoma.

The Bizzell Memorial Library was built in 1928 by the architecture firm Layton Hicks & Forsyth, the building is made out of brick and is a Collegiate Gothic or Cherokee Gothic. Cherokee Gothic is a term coined by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the building combined both Gothic and Native American elements being made in dark and pale brick and featuring decorative gothic statues around the front. The stone statues built into the building and the wood ones carved at the top of the great reading room are personally what makes this building stand out from the rest of the university, but my favorite part of the building is the entrance, it looks like a castle to me but like an OU themed castle.

The Bizz gives me a positive feeling every time I walk into it and spend multiple hours studying in it. Its unique architecture and style is something I always notice when I walk by it on my way to class and it is by far the most beautiful building to look at on the south oval. When I think back on my time in college, I think I’ll remember the Bizz the most out of all the things I did on campus (Minus the football games), and thinking about the building will always bring me joy.

Picture Received from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oudaily.com%2Fnews%2Fou-bizzell-memorial-library-ranked-in-lists-of-most-gorgeous%2Farticle_36025bf0-7216-11e7-808e-171ddaad171a.html&psig=AOvVaw3tuDeaMJfFrtnHMN5uL0Qa&ust=1633053013718000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCPD7odnKpfMCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAP

Growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, I have been going to OU football games my whole life starting since I was born, so I have spent a significant amount of time in Gaylord Memorial Stadium. Whenever I think about fall, I think about ou football and the tailgates with my family in the football stadium parking lot that is connected to the stadium’s west side, we would pull up in the parking lot and go to the fifth floor, and we would go to the end of the parking garage floor and park our cars and set up tables next to the parking garage wall. When my family was done tailgating, we would go into the stadium, would sit in the middle section of the west side, and as a kid, the stadium looked so big and never-ending. As a kid, there was no bowl. It was open, and on the south end, there was a free-standing section of seating, and you could see outside the stadium looking between the sides. As I got older, the Gaylord Memorial Stadium looked more stunning, and though it doesn’t look as big anymore, I can respect the new bowl aspect of the stadium. When I think about October, I think about the Gaylord Memorial Stadium.

Gaylord Memorial stadium was built in 1923 and originally had seating for 500 people on both sides of the stadium, and in 1925 they built 16,000 more seating on the west side of the stadium. In 1923 the stadium was named Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in honor of the University students and others who were killed in action during ww1. During the 1920s, the stadium got its nickname Owens field in honor of coach Benni Owen. The reason it was not bowled at first was that it needed openings to get to the practice fields at the ends of the stadium. Also, the baseball team shared the field so they needed to keep the stadium open so that the baseball field would not be cut off by the bowl, in 1949 the north side of the stadium was closed off and seating was added and then in 1957 the south side added bleachers and in the 70s the upper decks were added. It wouldn’t be until 2016 almost 100 years after the stadium was built that it would finally start to be completely bowled.

The architecture of Gaylord Memorial Stadium is very unique because the stadium is a combination of almost 100 years of building. Every section of the stadium is unique because it was either added on to or built upon the original stadium and it shows the changing needs of the fans and team throughout the past 100 years. The rich history of the architecture and the memories of the stadium from growing up going has left a positive influence on me and when I think about it or go there it brings back good memories.

Image retrieved from https://www.collegegridirons.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/memok17951.jpg