<p>About Whitman, according to <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/02/1024_contrasts/hmcap.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/02/1024_contrasts/hmcap.html</a>, it looks like it's all one continuous dorm (Yale-style) versus a collection of buildings. The setup looks like it could be really beautiful, too. And since the architect who's overseeing its design (Demetri Porphyrios) was responsible for Quadrangles and facilities for the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, it'll definitely be a sweet residential facility. Can't wait 'til at least the exterior is fully erected so that we can bask in its awesomeness, hehe :)</p>
<p>having seen the architect's work at oxford and elsewhere (the cambridge project is ongoing), i can safely say that whitman is going to be awesome. according to a new york times preview, it's going up at a cost of $200,000 per bed. not cheap!</p>
<p>Feinberg beyond a doubt is the nicest undergrad dorm! We have very big rooms, private bathrooms, an elevator, and we're centrally located!</p>
<p>Feinberg Hall: Where the fine people live. </p>
<p>--David--</p>
<p>P.S.- The new Lewis Science Library is uber modern! I wonder if it will clash with the revival of collegiate gothic as seen with Whitman?? In any case, it seems very cool!</p>
<p>Since it's in a different part of campus (i.e. where the rest of the modern stuff is), I think it'll blend nicely. Hopefully the architects weren't too...erm...intellectually challenged and didn't put an uber-modern building in the middle of Collegiate Gothic, hehe.</p>
<p>Witherspoon is hands down the most beautiful underclass dorm on campus. Holder Tower is also quite nice after its been renovated</p>
<p>Does anyone know what they're going to do with Holder Tower? There was scaffolding all around it last time I looked. How long has it been closed for anyway?</p>
<p>Blair is quite creaky.</p>
<p>The best dorms on campus are Witherspoon and Holder. But excited '09'ers in Holder next year should 'Hold' their horses. A lot of the rooms on the north side of the Holder Quad face Nassau Street, the main thoroughfare for traffic in Princeton. What's more, often times it's the bedrooms and not the common rooms that are closest to the street. So while the room may be brand-new, keep in mind that for the most part, freshmen are getting the rooms sophomores <em>didn't want.</em></p>
<p>As for Feinberg, I haven't been inside a room, but it looks all right. The walls just seem to be cinder-block, but the location is nice and you're on top of a laundry room. The best rooms in Feinberg are the Fishbowl (the bottommost quad), because of its proximity to the laundry room + its epic common room window, and the top two suites, the Penthouse and the Playhouse -- two six-man, two-story suites with two-story windows that afford a great view of the south campus!</p>
<p>Two-story windows? Wow...that's good stuff.</p>
<p>on the whitman/lewis contrast, see: "one campus, two faces":</p>
<p>Wow. Great article. Both camps (i.e. the traditionalists and the modernists) brought up interesting points I hadn't considered before. Nevertheless, I think this quote sums it up perfectly:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Todays undergraduates, she adds, yearn for tradition. Having grown up, in many cases, in suburbia, students are "extremely appreciative of Americas special, old places" and, apparently, replicas of those places. Collegiate gothic the style of Oxford and Cambridge reminds them that they are part of an intellectual tradition...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>yeah phill, i agree! great article!</p>
<p>in my opinion, i agree with the Dean of the University of Miami's Architecture School, and not just because she lives in my hometown. When Americans apply to college, just as the segment that Phil quoted above states, applicants are looking for buildings that take them away from their many times hectic, suburban/city lives, and introduce them to peaceful and serene ambiances that support them in their quests for knowledge. </p>
<p>Being from art-deco Miami, my favorite type of architecture will always be impressive steel and glass towers molded into shapes that seem almost impossible and even dangerous to step into, but for my four years of college, I simply could not have pictured myself living in a campus composed of mainly modern buildings. Collegiate Gothic is irrefutably inspirational. </p>
<p>--David--</p>
<p>When was Blair renovated - before or after Holder?</p>
<p>Before. Holder was closed all of last year due to renovation, so it will be brand-new in 2005-2006.</p>
<p>So Blair was renovated FIRST?</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I understand your question. Blair was renovated before Holder; Holder was renovated in 2004-2005; thus, Blair was renovated sometime before 2004-2005.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's what I meant :p. It was one of the first halls to be recently renovated, then they did Witherspoon and then they did Holder. What do they do when they renovate a dorm, and is Butler being renovated or rebuilt (someone mentioned they were changing Butler).</p>
<p>patton/wright and dod, both upperclass, were also renovated, part of a 30-year plan to renovate all of the undergraduate dormitories. renovation of a dormitory takes a full year, and usually involves a complete overhaul, including the creation of new common and living areas from unused space.</p>
<p>see, for example, this page on the renovation of dod:
<a href="http://www.hsnparch.com/projects/princeton/princetonEXT1.htm#%5B/url%5D">http://www.hsnparch.com/projects/princeton/princetonEXT1.htm#</a></p>
<p>as for butler, the brown-brick buildings built in the 1960's are going to be razed by the end of the decade, and new buildings erected in a modern style. walker, wu, and 1915 will remain. </p>
<p>on this matter, see:
<a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2003/11/26/news/9224.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2003/11/26/news/9224.shtml</a>
<a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2004/04/01/news/10099.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2004/04/01/news/10099.shtml</a></p>
<p>That picture of the room with the bay window in Dod...wow...Dod wins!</p>
<p>Yeah, if you look at the floorplans for Dod, there are also some really neat two-story suites in the top floor. My OA group slept in one of the suites in Dod the night before we left, and while it was insanely hot + humid, it was a pretty good deal.</p>
<p>ahh! Those interior photos are so cool :)</p>