(Sam Lee)

Hannah Kieschnick finds out what it means to be Modern at a school where old is gold, and tradition is king.

 

Morse has always been a new college. Constructed in 1961, Morse is less than thirty years younger than the original colleges, most of which were designed by John Gamble Rogers and built in the ’30s. But Morse isn’t modern, it’s Modern; Morse is coming up on its fiftieth birthday. It is no longer the baby of the bunch but the estranged, middle-aged aunt, and it has just received its mid-life crisis makeover.

For many years Morse was a college in confusion—the jutting blocks of cement, rough walls, and various influences of the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (more on this later) combined to create an impression no one knew how to understand. But with last year’s renovation, Morse is returning to its roots. Eero Saarinen, ARC ’34, began the process in the late ’50s, combining the historical traditions of Oxford and Cambridge, Yale’s reputation as a university of towers, and the needs of Yale men. Each generation of Morsels to pass through the disparate levels of Morse’s courtyard has contributed its own interpretation of what students require from a living space. And, with the renovation this past year, architecture firm KieranTimberlake joins the conversation, emphasizing contemporary standards and needs but also referring back to Saarinen and his vision for a forever-new college.

Saarinen designed Morse for a Yale radically different than the Yale of today. Cesar Pelli, the distinguished New Haven architect and former Dean of the School of Architecture, was chief designer of Morse and its sister college Stiles and worked closely with Saarinen. It was Pelli’s job to interview students and determine their needs and desires for the new colleges. “Everybody wanted single rooms, so Morse and Stiles are full of single rooms,” Pelli said.

According to Stephen Kieran of KieranTimberlake, the desire for single rooms was not merely based on a need for personal space and quiet time: “After World War II, Yale was a very dense place [because of the GI bill]. All the servicemen came back. In this context of really severe overcrowding, the desire of students to get singles became the model for Morse.” From this basic need for individual space, Saarinen expanded his vision, designing a complex cement structure, its floor plan impossibly intricate and its concrete facade striking and controversial.

Morse is often classified as a Modernist structure. In the spirit of Modernism, Saarinen emphasized the meaning and intent behind the buildings, creating a living space whose use was reflected in its form. But Pelli cautions against using the Modernist label. Morse and Stiles, Pelli said, “intimately fit in and grow from a piece of Yale. They could not be anywhere else and are full of Yale references.” Indeed, Saarinen incorporated his surroundings in his plans, creating buildings that were built to fit the unique shape of the space between the Hall of Graduate Studies and Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Kieran reveres this dynamism: “Saarinen was really fearless about looking at the world that was, and figuring out how to assist and renew and renovate and bring forward.”

The reality of the 1961 construction was that Yale didn’t spend very much on Morse. According to Pelli, Morse was allocated 20 dollars per square foot of construction, compared to 100 dollars per square foot for Branford, adjusted for inflation. More well known is Morse’s distance from the center of campus. Pelli jokes that the locality issue deeply concerned Saarinen. “He would say, ‘the students are going to feel they are in Siberia!’”

Paul Baerwald II, MC ’63, who entered Morse his junior year, did not feel physically removed. “My memory of Yale as a physical entity was that nothing was really far away.” David Titus, MC ’63, also did not complain of feeling isolated, both in terms of locality and social interaction. “It seemed the only change was architectural, because the two colleges were in relative proximity to everything else. We had fellows, we had a master, and no one had girls yet. It was perfectly normal. There was a bit of a sense of adventure.”

To further integrate Morse with the more established colleges, Saarinen sought to bring key elements of Yale living to the college, to serve as a visual bridge between the old and the new. Other colleges had dining halls; Morse was given one as well. Other colleges had common spaces; Morse was given one too. Saarinen, however, purposely made the common room darker and lower in imitation of below-street level beer halls called “rathskellers.”

Saarinen, however, could not instill college spirit in Morse. Baerwald, for one, found it lacking. “It felt like a jail cell to me. I don’t think Morse was physically set up to engender that kind of fraternity feeling. The other colleges were. They had all the history.” 25 years of it, at least. Titus emphasized that social interactions often took place outside the residential colleges­—in part because that’s where the women were—and he formed his community of friends through his involvement in the Dramat. Still, he found it exciting to be part of a vanguard, despite the lack of traditions.

This sense of adventure was buttressed by Saarinen’s on-campus celebrity. Edward A. Dennis, MC ’63, volunteered with three other friends to move from Timothy Dwight to Morse for his senior year at Yale. “This was at the pinnacle of Modern architecture. The opportunity to live in a building that had been designed by Saarinen was very exciting.” Dennis had taken Vincent Scully’s History of Architecture class his junior year and jumped at the opportunity to live in a building designed by the famed Saarinen. Baerwald, too, cited the lure of the architecture when explaining his decision to live in Morse.

As I chatted with Pelli, he asked me what the biggest change Yale has undergone in the past fifty years was. “You!” he answered rhetorically. As a female in Morse, I am an unknown creature to these male Morsels of the ’60s, when the college was new and women were far removed.

The social dynamic in the residential colleges, then, was very different than it is today. “It’s quite different to have a bunch of guys all by themselves,” said Pelli. Rather, these colleges were not necessarily places for social gatherings but for living, studying and eating. The understanding of a residential college was that it was a residence rather than a gathering place for social interaction. “The place you lived didn’t seem like it was that important because there was no social life. If there was social interaction, it would have been a whole different ballgame,” said Baerwald. He recounted leaving campus almost every week, never spending a single weekend of his four years in New Haven, because he would visit friends, and girlfriends, in other cities. Titus explained that the single sex nature of Morse meant most socializing happened outside the confines of Yale. “A fairly substantial amount of free time was engaged by looking for girls. We spent out time rummaging for money and cars in highly creative ways.” One such method was to gather up extra copies of the Yale Record and sell them in other cities to make enough money for dates.

After talking to these former Morsels, I was left with the sense that the Morse of yesteryear, while physically different, also symbolized something very different to its inhabitants. It was visually exciting, and intriguing as a new place on campus, but it did not carry with it the same social significance that our colleges do today. As Titus said, “Life went on as normal.”

Normal life at Yale was interrupted in 1969 with the introduction of women, and the vocabulary of architectural conversation shifted as Morse took on a new meaning for Morsels. As with the rise in the drinking age in the ’80s, social interaction became more college-centric. No longer did the Morse boys need to leave the confines of their college to have interaction with the fairer sex. Instead, they could socialize within the college. The public spaces became central to that interaction, providing an accepted space for this new social engagement. And as the public spaces were used more, their inadequacies were brought to light. Saarinen’s rathskellar was not designed for mixers.

Kevin Adkisson, MC ’12, a self-proclaimed Saarinen enthusiast and one of the few people who hoped to be placed in Morse, feels that the college lost its way during these decades. Adkisson’s admiration of Morse grew from “glamorous photos” of the Saarinen buildings; he found upon his arrival at Yale that the colleges were “different from the original intent.”

Morse underwent adolescence, if you will, between its original construction and the most recent renovations. The introduction of women interrupted the cohesion between male Morsels, their Yale surroundings, and the legacy of Oxbridge. Pelli could not comprehend how women would be able to fit seamlessly into Morse’s single room structure. “That would have been incomprehensible when we were designing it. Not only the social mores but, oh my God, to have women in the bathrooms? Impossible. The world would come tumbling down.” In all seriousness, Pelli does emphasize the complications of bringing women into Morse; because of the lack of suites women were integrated into the folds of single rooms, often in close proximity to their male peers.

There were other complications in Morse’s middle years. Modernist buildings are not well-suited to the typical wear and tear that the colleges receive. “I’m just not sure that the Modern style is as durable as wood paneling. The Gothic buildings get warmer and more charming, and Morse just deserves to be perfect.” Modernist buildings, unlike worn and charming Gothic buildings, do not age well. Disrepair sheds a glaring light on the failures of construction and execution. Modernist buildings are supposed to look new.

Time weighed heavily on some of the features Morse originally boasted. As an incentive to leave behind the functioning fireplaces in the other colleges, Saarinen installed heating in the otherwise cold stone floors. Each alumnus I spoke with fondly recounted this addition. “I loved the heated floor. We missed the fireplaces but they’re all gone anyway. That was among the first of the heated stone slate floors and I just loved it,” said Dennis. Titus, too, considered the shift from fireplaces to heated toes was well worth it. “We gave up working fireplaces but of course, they’re not all working now, and we were delighted to have those heated floors.”

Morsels today might wonder what happened to this scheme of radiant heating, recalling winter mornings of cold feet on chilled stone. According to Pelli, “That lasted for a few years until they started having problems with the pipes and the radiant heating disappeared.” Other features also fell into disrepair. “In order to save energy and money, Yale started replacing the incandescent lights with other weaker bulbs that looked dim and dingy.” Morse felt neglected.

Despite this neglect and obvious disrepair, Morse was still considered a new college. Every fad of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s was relegated to Morse because Morse was new. But mixing the purple and teal accent decorations of the nineties with the Modernism of the sixties was like oil and water. It disrupted the cohesive nature of Morse and created a sense of dissonance. According to Adkisson, “the renovation of the library [in 1996] gave us the purple linoleum cubes and teal and purple tapestries and little curvature chairs—they’re so awful. It was just not appropriate.”

With Modernist sensibility fading, Morse became a convoluted place of discarded cultural trends. Other colleges were preserved as museums; Morse had an identity crisis. Adkisson remembers trying to convince his freshman year suitemates of Morse’s merits in the architectural world. “But it is an architecture that has so much theory and thought behind it, and it’s hard to love theory,” he conceded.

The renovations gave Morse the opportunity to regain its original meaning. While the renovations changed the college significantly, in preserving the Modernist ideal of form and function in tandem, they remain faithful to Saarinen’s vision. KieranTimberlake, the firm behind the renovations, as excited and honored by this chance to reengage with the Saarinen dialogue, while simultaneously adding contemporary features and facilities. “We engaged in an intergenerational conversation about not throwing out his work, but reinterpreting it and renewing it for a new time.”

The most distinctive feature of the original Morse was its single rooms, a remedy for over-crowding but troublesome for a diverse student population. “A large part of our investigations suggested that Morse and Stiles might well benefit from the extension of that more pervasive Yale culture, the DNA that Yale has with suite-based configurations,” said Kieran. While not every room has been attached to a common space, the majority of Morsels now enjoy those suites and common room.

The common room was, in fact, a major focal point in the renovations. Filled with natural light and a sense of openness, the new common room differs dramatically from Saarinen’s darker and dingier rathskellar. The common room’s furniture, however, was purposefully chosen to mirror Saarinen’s ’60s style. Adkisson and I sat in what he called the “right furniture” for the space while we talked about the history of the college and its changes over time. “This common room could have opened originally in 1961,” referencing the cohesive styling with clearly ‘60s-style chairs and stools. “I guess the public spaces are more architecturally appropriate and significantly more attractive.” Gone are the purple and teal chairs that created dissonance in Saarinen’s legacy.

Maintaining this legacy was of vital importance to Kieran. “We tried to have a dialogue between the new and the old work going on where additions have been made. That’s something you’ll see in subtle ways around the college. They almost bubble up to the surface.” With these pockets of change surrounded by consistency, Morse now feels like a familiar place with pleasant improvements. Pelli agreed. “The success is that they maintained the basic character of the colleges—they just brought them up to date.”

The facilities are the crux of this change. Pelli, at the unique vantage point of knowing what students demanded of their colleges in the early ’60s, reflected on the renovations a propos of changing demands. “I think in general they did a good job with the remodeling, because it adds a series of facilities today students expect or demand that did not exist originally. The life in the colleges when we were designing them was a little more spartan than it is today.”

Because so many students today view their residential colleges as the center of their Yale experience and social life, the facilities and public spaces in Morse needed to be brought up to par with the rest of Yale. Elena Hoffnagle, MC ’11, is a senior in Morse and has had the opportunity to live in every possible housing configuration available to Morsels: Durfee her freshman year, “old” Morse sophomore year, Swing Space junior year, and finally back to “new” Morse this year. She believes the additional facilities—such as an updated gym, black box theatre, art gallery, and practice rooms—will underscore Morse as the center of Morsel life. “The renovations create more reasons for students in Morse to stay in Morse.”

Kieran would be pleased. He wanted to “make this place a real pride for everybody. That’s always been central to the college system—that everyone needs to feel a positive identity with the college in order to maximize their experience at Yale.” And while not everything is perfect—my bed just doesn’t quite fit into my room’s awkwardly shaped corners—Morse really does feel like a point of pride now. In fact, 89.9 percent of Morsels said they were proud to be in Morse in a survey the Herald sent to Morse College this past week, and 95.9 percent of Morsels said that college spirit had improved since the renovations.

Over the past fifty years, both Morse and Yale have undergone big changes, including (though not limited to) the admission of women to campus and the shift towards the residential colleges as a major source of social engagement. Saarinen originally imagined the college as a combination of his Modernist style, its surroundings and a romantic interpretation of Yale’s historical legacy. Said Pelli, “A true Modernist would not have accepted that romanticism was a valid purpose. His romantic purpose was to create an environment that would be not only enjoyable physically but suggestive of other worlds, other places.”

With the renovations, Morse has regained that romantic purpose. The references to Saarinen—the ’60s furniture, the single rooms—are still there, but have been updated to fit student needs and demands for on-par facilities. The renovations cleared away 50 years of mixed messages and generational fads, leaving a sleek, modern interpretation of a Modernist building. “It’s become a dialogue of things that have changed and things that have stayed the same,” said Kieran. And with Morse’s gates reopened, Morsels are deep in this conversation.

Cover photo by Sam Lee.