Purchase College, SUNY

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Purchase College, SUNY

Site overview

Designed as a "city within the country", architect Edward Larrabee Barnes created the master plan for Purchase College in 1967. The campus plan included a collection of buildings clustered around a plaza, surrounded by fields and meadows. In addition to Barnes, several major Modernist architects were brought in to design the individual buildings, including Philip Johnson, Norman Fletcher, John Burgee, Gunnar Birkerts, Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel, and Venturi & Rauch. The design of Purchase College is a excellent example of 1970s urban design and campus planning concepts. The complex is often described within the Brutalist architectural style for its rough and block-like appearance. The use of brick as the dominant material was described at the time as "masterly" and functions as a unifying element across the individually designed structures.

Purchase College, SUNY

Site overview

Designed as a "city within the country", architect Edward Larrabee Barnes created the master plan for Purchase College in 1967. The campus plan included a collection of buildings clustered around a plaza, surrounded by fields and meadows. In addition to Barnes, several major Modernist architects were brought in to design the individual buildings, including Philip Johnson, Norman Fletcher, John Burgee, Gunnar Birkerts, Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel, and Venturi & Rauch. The design of Purchase College is a excellent example of 1970s urban design and campus planning concepts. The complex is often described within the Brutalist architectural style for its rough and block-like appearance. The use of brick as the dominant material was described at the time as "masterly" and functions as a unifying element across the individually designed structures.

Purchase College, SUNY

Site overview

Designed as a "city within the country", architect Edward Larrabee Barnes created the master plan for Purchase College in 1967. The campus plan included a collection of buildings clustered around a plaza, surrounded by fields and meadows. In addition to Barnes, several major Modernist architects were brought in to design the individual buildings, including Philip Johnson, Norman Fletcher, John Burgee, Gunnar Birkerts, Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel, and Venturi & Rauch. The design of Purchase College is a excellent example of 1970s urban design and campus planning concepts. The complex is often described within the Brutalist architectural style for its rough and block-like appearance. The use of brick as the dominant material was described at the time as "masterly" and functions as a unifying element across the individually designed structures.

Purchase College, SUNY

Site overview

Designed as a "city within the country", architect Edward Larrabee Barnes created the master plan for Purchase College in 1967. The campus plan included a collection of buildings clustered around a plaza, surrounded by fields and meadows. In addition to Barnes, several major Modernist architects were brought in to design the individual buildings, including Philip Johnson, Norman Fletcher, John Burgee, Gunnar Birkerts, Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel, and Venturi & Rauch. The design of Purchase College is a excellent example of 1970s urban design and campus planning concepts. The complex is often described within the Brutalist architectural style for its rough and block-like appearance. The use of brick as the dominant material was described at the time as "masterly" and functions as a unifying element across the individually designed structures.

How to Visit

Docent-led tours for visiting students and families

Location

735 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY, 10577

Country

US
More visitation information

Designer(s)

Other designers

Master Planner: Edward Larrabee BarnesGreat Court, Post Office & Library: Edward Larrabee BarnesPerforming Arts Center: Edward Larrabee BarnesVisual Arts: Norman Fletcher, The Architects CollectiveRoy R. Neuberger of Art: Philip Johnson and John BurgeeHumanities: Venturi and RauchSocial Sciences: Venturi and RauchNatural Sciences: Paul RudolphDance: Gunnar BirkertsMusic: Edward Larrabee BarnesStudent Activities A & B: Edward Larrabee BarnesResidential Complex A: Gwathmey, Henderson & SiegelResidential Complex B: Giovanni PasanellaHealth and Physical Education: Edward Larrabee BarnesService Buildings: Gwathmey, Henderson & SiegelTheatre Arts: Never RealizedLandscape Architect: Peter G. Rolland & AssociatesElectro-Mechanical Engineers: Segner & DaltonAcoustical Consultants: Bolt Beranek & NewmanTransportation Consultants: Voorhees & Associates, Inc.Soils Consultants: Fred N. Zercher & Associates

Related News

Commission

1967

Completion

1979

Commission / Completion details

Commission 196X ()/Founded: September 1971 (e)/Completion 1979 (a)

Original Brief

Founded in 1971, Purchase College, State University of New York (SUNY) is one of sixty-four colleges and universities that make up the largest public university system in the United States. The State University of New York system was written into law in 1948 by Governor Thomas E. Dewey and was dramatically expanded by Nelson A. Rockefeller during his four terms as Governor from 1959 to 1973. \"Rockefeller saw a grand panorama of prize-winning buildings spread across the state that would offer the best assortment of learning environments anywhere. Students could choose among them and, within their architecturally outstanding walls, grow under a cadre of superior educators wooed from the best universities." (Poly Arch p168) To do so, Rockefeller created the State University Construction Fund (SUCF) in 1962 in order to meet the increased demand for higher education resulting from population growth. The Fund (initially lead by a three-person board of trustees, one overall architect and one general manager) streamlined governmental procedures and allowed for construction of State University facilities to be expedited. Private architects and contractors who had previously been reluctant to take on State work, now were afforded control over design and a "climate essential to the creation of good design and good architecture" (Rockefeller, Arch for Arts).The addition of a State University for the arts was initiated in 1967 and was of special interest to Governor Rockefeller. Edward Larrabee Barnes was selected as the master planner and architect, and unique to all of the SUNY campuses, a roster of the most gifted and highly regarded architects were chosen to design a structure on the campus. The architects selected included Philip Johnson and John Burgee, Paul Rudolph, Venturi and Rauch, Gunnar Birkerts & Associates and Gwathmey, Henderson & Siegel. With buildings amid construction, Purchase opened in the fall of 1971 in portable classrooms and the clapboard farm house on the 500-acre site.

Significant Alteration(s) with Date(s)

Dance Building Restoration: renovated and restored in 2006 by Robert Siegel ArchitectsStudent Services Building: NEW, 2006Residential Building, Fort AwesomeMall Renovation

Current Use

Purchase College continues to be a four-year public college for the State University of New York system. The college remains dedicated as a mixture of arts and liberal arts programs and maintains a body of roughly 4,000 students.

General Description

The Purchase College Dance Building, was the first facility in the United States to be constructed solely for the study and performance of dance. Designed in 1970 by Gunnar Birkerts and Associates, it houses 14 studios and a 270-seat Dance Theater Lab (NYT, From College to the World, by Way of Dance, By LAURA JOSEPH MOGIL, 4/13/2008).