羞羞视颏

Article courtesy of the Saint John’s University Archives, 1965

The scholastic wing and the dormitory are the first two completed buildings of a larger complex planned by the architect for the St. John’s Preparatory School. The group of Benedictine monks who operate the school are members of St. John’s Abbey, which also conducts a university and staffs a major seminary at Collegeville, Minnesota (USA). In order to preserve the unity of the Benedictine community and not to duplicate housing facilities for the teachers, the preparatory school was to be built within walking distance of the monastery and the abbey church. Such a close proximity would permit the use of common services and utility lines, but it also raised a distinct possibility of offending the ear and eye. The noisy exuberance of schoolboys could have disturbed the contemplative serenity of monastic quarters, and a divergent style could have introduced a discordant note into the architectural ensemble designed by Marcel Breuer. The architect skillfully avoided both pitfalls. By setting the preparatory school onto a wooded hillside just east of the main campus he achieved the necessary visual separation and provided an effective muffling of sound.

The scholastic wing presently contains small classrooms for teaching and large study halls in which each boy has a desk for individual work. Adjacent to the study halls are offices where prefects and teachers counsel single students. Traffic flows easily in orderly fashion through a wide central stairway which connects the four levels of classrooms and study halls, terraced into the hill. The fifth level on top of the hill and a future sixth level will accomodate the science department and the administration.

The dormitory building houses a dormitory not at all typical for a private American high school, since it does not have individual rooms and is used for sleeping only. The huge open split-level area is divided into eight sections or bays of sixty beds each, with rows of wardrobe lockers serving as dividers. Each bay is further sec-tioned into groups of four beds by means of six and eight-foot partitions made of dark oak and laminated white plastic panels. Four stations for prefects (one for each 120 beds) are located ted within the boys quarters. There is an easy access to beds and lockers, the showers to the north, and the rooms of resident prefects to the south by way of a central bridge which divides the building longitudinally. Both buildings utilize the slope for direct egress on several levels, and in general cling to the existing terrain. The placement of the buildings on the south side of the hill protects them from prevailing northwestern winds and makes use of solar heat in winter. Projecting vaults over the classroom windows and the brise-soleil of the dormitory shield the interior from excessive heat in the summer. Only a minimal amount of openings penetrate the east and west walls, which step down the hill. It is in these walls that panels of exposed concrete were molded into iconographic reliefs by the Polish-American artist Bronislaw Bak.

The monastic simplicity of cylindrical shells, more than a hundred of which cover the scholastic wing is a product of repetitive use of a few primitive plywood forms. The rythmic articulation of concrete walls is only a pattern of grooves which denotes the joints between pouring sequences. The splayed columns and trapezoidal beams are shapes which permit an easy lowering of re-usable formwork for the hyperbolic paraboloids of the dormitory. Even the orizontal granite courses which interlace the long concrete block walls of the interior serve an utilitarian function of eliminating otherwise unavoidable shrinkage cracks. Throughout the project the architect sought to use logical simple unconcealed materials and derive his forms from the most economical methods of construction.

The timeless virtues which the Benedictine monks endeavor to impart to their charges: faith, simplicity of life, and dedication to work found an appropriate architectural frame.

Michelson, Val.  鈥溾��&苍产蝉辫;Lotus: Architectural Annual (pp. 198-205). Milan, Italy: B. Alfieri, 1965.

Visit Boarding Students – Saint John’s Prep – College Preparatory School to learn more about the recent updates to Saint Michael Hall.