Association of University Architects
1998 Case Study Awards Program

Page 2

We respond architecturally by building satellite coffee bars spread throughout the campus; department "hearths" where the spontaneous meetings of faculty and students around the mail box, the copy machine, or the water cooler are supported with chairs and views; small public squares; and renovated student unions and recreation centers. All of these spaces are built with the same goal, to encourage the free exchange of ideas that are the result of chance meetings and, ideally, to build on the lessons begun in the classroom. The University of Oregon has recently completed an outdoor amphitheater whose express purpose as described by its student sponsors is to foster the free exchange of ideas amongst the student body. This current project, the third iteration of this part of campus in the last fifty years, restores the cherished free-speech platform that was diminished by a 1970s renovation.

When the Erb Memorial Student Union opened in 1950, it was located on the eastern edge of the campus and the enrollment was 6,000. Funded entirely by student funds, the building became home to the burgeoning student body whose numbers had increased twofold in the previous ten years. The northwest corner opened onto the intersection of 13th Avenue and University Street. University Street marked the boundary that separated the academic from the residential areas of the campus.

The edge of the raised terrace outside of the "fishbowl" dining area became the place for students to address their assembled peers. By the early 1960s, speeches from the terrace had became a regular event, and the spot was institutionalized by the construction of a brick podium that become known as the "free-speech platform". Like most universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s the campus was the site of protests, marches, and violent clashes with the authorities. The free-speech platform was the beginning point of many of these events.