Or are you afraid that it represents your destiny?
"Everyone in there scares me," said one arts student, when talking about the Trinity College Arts Block, "it’s like a fashion runway from hell.”
The arts building- commonly referred to as the arts block because it is, many agree, a shithole that looks like a prison - is one of the most controversial buildings on campus. It’s a monument of brutalist architecture yet many students would love to demolish it with their own two hands.
I recently chatted to a number of students about the arts block. I was curious to learn where the hatred comes from. Is it the building they hate, or is it the fear of failure that it symbolises?
Every conversation I had about the arts block quickly dissolved into a vicious rant against the pretentious, mullet wearing, chain-smoking, image of the art student that we’ve all come to know and hate. I began to realise how much arts students secretly despise each other. This hatred (or perhaps it’s poorly concealed admiration?) is so strong that it cannot be separated from people's feelings about the building. The arts block lives and breathes with its student population, just as its hallways reek of their nicotine soaked clothes. What began as a brutalist monument now represents a lifestyle, a fashion statement, a poorly developed argument about Ulysses.
The building was designed between 1968-79 by Ahrends, Burton & Koralek (ABK) and was intended to accommodate a sudden growth in the student population. Today it houses double the amount of students it was originally designed for, which makes it impossible for the facilities to meet the needs of its students. In order to find a place to study, students regularly need to trek all the way up to the sixth floor, which is challenging when many art students have the lungs of a 60-year-old nicotine addict. Despite its overcrowding and outdated facilities, it cannot be remodelled due to its architectural “heritage.”
Brutalist architecture, which was originated by the modernist architect Le Corbusier, has been polarising since its inception. While some architectural fans feel that they are ‘in the presence of genius’ when inside a brutalist structure, others argue that the buildings are massive concrete eyesores. The style emerged as an aesthetic movement in the 1950s and sought to align itself with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Brutalists rebelled against the curves and frivolity of Art Deco design and instead focused on rugged, geometric forms and raw materials such as concrete. The style called for honesty. Brutalist architecture counts on the principle that nothing is tidied up or hidden behind a mask; it simply exists in its raw form and should be accepted that way.
The problem is that students refuse to accept the arts block for what it is; a controversial piece of art. The building was designed with function in mind, but it also took artistic risks that may or may not have failed. But what arts student cannot relate to this? Who hasn’t taken a fashion risk in first year that pains them to this day? Who hasn’t made an argument in a tutorial that was so embarrassingly bad it wakes them up in a cold sweat at 2am?
After all, college is about learning and trying new things. Perhaps more importantly, it’s about trying and failing. And what better place to fail dramatically than in a building that is itself a horrific failure? Against the backdrop of the bleak concrete interior, standards are low. Students can stand out and shine because they are surrounded by such soul-crushing dreariness. The arts block perfectly accommodates its students by providing them with a welcoming environment to fuck up dramatically. So shouldn’t we appreciate this poor unloved building? No, I hear you say, it’s depressing and broken down and its overcrowded bathrooms are the reason I got that kidney infection back in first year. Yet I encourage you to have some compassion nonetheless.
Perhaps the arts block represents everything we will inevitably become. Worn down, uncool, full of ambitions that were never fulfilled. After all, brutalism began as a youthful rebellion against its art deco parents, an attempt to be better, stronger, more practical than those who came before it. It too, was pretentious and slightly deluded, believing that it could solve all the world’s problems by masking them in concrete.
Often, what defines a successful artist is their bravery. The arts block is undeniably brave. Its mammoth existence challenges you to accept it for what it is- unapologetically ugly. The arts block deserves its students. It deserves any student who is willing to be brave in order to express themselves, even if it makes them stand out. It deserves those students who are bold and uncompromising in their beliefs. It deserves students who take risks, even if that risk is simply studying something they enjoy.
The arts block is an important reminder that what begins as a bold statement can quickly become a rain-beaten eyesore. What is trendy today will soon become somebody’s nightmare, and it will probably be yours. Inevitably, the things we love and believe in will one day be considered outdated, archaic and ridiculous. Brutalism went from cool to crude and is now finally staging a comeback. Which means that someday in the near future, students will make fun of our generation for wearing mullets and cowboy boots, while standing in front of the arts block and thinking ‘cool’.