ARCHITECTURAL PLANNING OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE
By Jens Fredrick Larson, A.M. 1928 and Archie Maclnnes Palmer, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1933.
Mr. Larson, architect for Dartmouth College during the past fourteen years, and Mr. Palmer, associate secretary of the Association of American Colleges, have been actively engaged in the program of the Association of the American Colleges' Committee on College Architecture and College Instruction in the Fine Arts since 1929- This book now appears as a tangible record of one branch of the committee's activities, the architectural advisory bureau established for the purpose of giving assistance on architectural problems to the liberal arts colleges of the country. The purposes of the book, as stated by the authors, are as follows:
1. to present the history and accomplishments of the architectural advisory service of the Association of American Colleges;
2. to stimulate, encourage, and help those concerned with college development programs;
3. to appraise the principles involved in campus planning and the designing of college buildings of lasting worth;
4. to illustrate tested procedures which can be readily adopted for guidance in individual situations.
Much of the value of the book lies in the fact that it is the joint product of a professional architect and a layman. Mr. Palmer has obviously raised questions that many college officers who are planning additions to plant need to have answered it they are to avoid misunderstandings and, perhaps, serious blunders in their relationships with their architects. Mr. Larson has answered these questions and has outlined not only the responsibilities that architects must assume but also the limits beyond which they are not entitled to go in their zeal for creating artistic masterpieces. The chapter entitled THE ARCHITECT AND THE COLLEGE is a splendid exposition of the problems and the responsibilities of the architect who sets out to work in the specialized field of college architecture. College officers will gain from a careful reading of the early chapters an understanding of the responsibility that the college should take in helping to plan the building, and they will be given insight into the architect's problem that ought to prevent ungrounded fear of the artistic temperament.
The balance of the book, constituting a major portion of the pages, consists of the chapters entitled PLANNING THE CAMPUS and PLANNING THE BUILDINGS. Actual problems are discussed and are well illustrated by photographs of development plans, buildings and sketches of proposed buildings. In most instances, simplified floor plans are given. The result is that the book becomes an indispensable aid to those who are charged with the responsibility of planning for the development of plant in the liberal arts college. Others who have a problem of functional architecture to solve might well consult this book, for many of the general principles given are applicable 10 all fields of architecture.
Professor Robert F.. Riegel is the authorof "The American Father of Birth Control" reprinted from the New EnglandQuarterly, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1933. It is interesting to note in this connection that theman discussed by Professor Riegel is Dr.Charles Knowlton, a graduate of the Dartmouth Medical School in the class of 1824.
Professor Arthur Fairbanks is the authorof "Greek Art the Basis of Later EuropeanArt" published by Longmans Green &Company. This book will be reviewed in alater issue of the MAGAZINE.
The Oxford University Press has just published "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Tale of a Tub" edited by Professor William A. Eddy. This is the second edition of the new standard edition of Swift which Professor Eddy has prepared for the Oxford Press.
"Orders of Insects with Heart-Beat Reversal" by Professor John H. Gerould has been reprinted from the June issue of the Biological Bulletin.
Professor W. K. Wright has contributed a paper, entitled "The Recovery of the Religious Sentiment", to the Second Series of Contemporary American Theology, a book of "theological autobiographies" edited by Vergilius Ferm, and published by the Round Table Press in August.
