Survived all right... (and an architecture rant)

So I finished my paper at 11 PM last night, and put together the presentation by 2 AM. Then I got up at 7 AM to rehearse, and delivered it in class today.

It went ok. In fact, I would say that it went pretty well... one of the other people in class who is noticeably clueful complimented me on it, and I had a more-interesting-than-usual dialog with the professor in the Q&A portion. I was even considering writing a blog post titled, "0WnZ0RRR!!" in my post-presentation elation, but I figure that would be tempting fate to hand me my ass with a side order of curly fries on the midterm.

Anyway, if you are curious, I did my presentation on the damage on the precast exterior panels of the University of Waterloo's Math and Computer Building (1968). A great little snippet from the news article from the opening of the building: "It contains Canada's fastest computer: an IBM 360 Series, Model 75." Which is equivalent to what--an old iPod?--nowadays, perhaps?



In case you were still curious, my best judgement was that it is showing map pattern cracking due to alkali-aggregate reaction, and that there are (repaired) popouts which were due to freeze thaw damage. Yeah, didn't think you were that interested, either.

So yes, I went through all that work and stress for 5% of the course grade. I knew that fact going in, but it felt like this was the right amount of work for what was being asked.

I have wondered for a while if this building was somehow related to Boston City Hall (1969)--it has a similar top-heavy concrete big-ass-cube architecture, which appears to put a priority on pitching boiling oil on invaders. As a matter of fact, completely different firms were involved (Kallman, McKinnell, Knowles in Boston vs. Webb, Zerafa, Menkes & Matthews in Waterloo). However, I found out that they all drew from Le Corbusier's Convent of La Tourette (1960). Go ahead and take a look at that link, then come back.

<RANT>Holy crap those architects were a bunch of unimaginative hacks. "Hey, let's just copy Corbu, it'll be great! Well, we'll make it like his, but, y'know, like, bigger."</RANT>

Another interesting fact learned on Wikipedia this evening: the architectural movement of Brutalism (all these buildings fall in that category) was not named for, well, its obvious literal meaning (and its effect on viewers and end-users of the building). Instead, it comes from the French béton brut, or raw concrete. Unfortunately, one thing that I learned from my case study: just because it is made of concrete doesn't mean you can just leave it outside and expect it to last forever with no maintenance. A lot of these architectural movements (Modernism, International Style) seem a lot like old clothing from a misspent youth that you're embarassed to admit you have in your closet ("You have one of those! Wow! Like... groovy, dude!")

Anyway, I just have to finish setting up my experiment so it can run on its own, help chief grad student do final prep for our trip, and then I'm off to Vancouver on Thursday morning. I received some great Vancouver restaurant and bar recommendations from Jofish and Jess; if anyone else has suggestions, let me know!