We finish looking around and leave Matthews for a last stroll. As we walk away, Spindler and Pribell agree that the dorm is elegant, almost to the point of excess. “This was a bit of a vanity project for Mr. Matthews, don’t you think?” he asks. “Yeah,” she replies, “everyone’s searching for immortality.”
We exit Matthews and talk furniture on the way to Apley Court. “A desk can tell you so much about the social history and cultural history in the time in which it was made. Issues of privacy, correspondence, power, I think all those things you can find,” says Spindler, as he discusses his profession as an antiques dealer. He points to the history in our quotidian possessions, their ability to tell a story, how they were used, how they were intended.
Apley, the 1897 brownstone apartment complex just south of the Yard, was originally intended for the wealthy, male students of a bygone era. The room we visited, however, was inhabited by two female students, proudly on financial aid. Spindler calls attention to these students as evincing democratic change: these spaces were designed for an utterly different type of individual who would bear no resemblance to today’s residents. “I think today, the stereotype of who would live here, you know, the Winklevoss twins, I think they’re in a way archaic as far as the typical profile of Harvard students.” In Apley, the contrast between design intent and building use shows that a building’s designer may not be able to control actual behavior even while her goals remain clear.
SHAPE THE SPACE
In each dorm that we visited, Spindler and Pribell identified subtle aspects that create a consistent, even overwhelming aesthetic. In Canaday, the design dynamic of power and control the dorm manifests itself today in modern isolation; in Matthews, the elegance becomes an encouragement for enthusiasm and socializing; and in Apley, the grandeur becomes a reminder of the patriarchy and elitism of the past. “[College students] should be aware…[that] they have to occupy [a space] to make it useful. There’s a saying in architecture that space only exists once it’s actually performed. Otherwise it’s just a place.” No matter the strength of suggestion, in the end it is the students who decide which hints to pick up on.
—Staff writer Keerthi Reddy can be reached at kreddy@college.harvard.edu.