This piece was truncated and modified from an essay for Mr. Emmott’s Historical Archaeology half-course where the author researched the history of a campus building.
Amid Milton’s largely homogeneous campus—characterized by symmetrical maroon buildings with white pillars, in classic Georgian Revival style—a concrete bunker on Ware Quad appears alien. The Art and Media Center was never my favorite building on campus. Taking three semesters of art classes under its sloped ceiling, I had trouble finding artistic inspiration within its grey walls, featuring no window to the outside world or, in my opinion, inherent visual appeal. A lack of enthusiasm for its architecture seems to echo among peers. However, this brutalist building harbors unexpected history and heritage which reflects the evolving institutional priorities of past decades.
The “Science Building”
The “Art and Media Center” was formerly the “Science Building”, constructed in 1960 in an attempt to ‘upgrade’ the Science Department, according to former photography teacher and architect Brian Cheney. Since the inception of science classes in 1807, Milton’s science education lagged behind Milton’s English and History programs in acclaim and facilities, Cheney remarked.
Classes previously took place in the fourth-floor classrooms of Warren Hall, which proved to be unsatisfactory, cramped lab spaces. However, in the 1960s, a national tide of scientific revolution—including discoveries around DNA structure, a developing environmentalist movement, and the nationally-televised Space Race—spurred a rising emphasis of scientific education. As prestigious institutions expanded their STEM course catalogue, Milton, too, wished to advance their science department—beginning with the construction of a new department building.
According to Cheney, the science faculty offered heavy input into the design of a new science building. They requested a space which was conceptually innovative and internally spacious; the science world had begun to advocate for large labs. They also requested that the new building would limit access to external distractions: over the decades, they noticed that the large windows in Warren’s fourth floor left boys prey to distractions from the quad and Girls’ school. Most importantly, however, they wanted a building that was new and current, representative of a new era for the department. These preferences coalesced in the “cement, bunker-like” structure, as Cheney characterizes, featuring open classrooms, multiple sinks, and no windows, that we know today.
The design of the Science Building also directly traces back to the brutalist movement in 1960s America. Brutalism is characterized by a monochrome, blocky appearance with exposed industrial materials such concrete, steel, and glass. Despite its stoic exterior, the 60s’ brutalist architecture embodied a post-war resilience and an unbridled optimism about the future. On one hand, the employment of readily available materials to build functional, affordable structures reflected burgeoning democracy and equity following World War II. Aesthetically, the raw, unadorned outlook delivered a message that art could persist despite trauma. Critically, the innovative style also represented a concrete societal shift—in line with the science department’s desired rebranding.
By the time Cheney arrived in Milton in 1968, the brutalist Science Building was already under construction. In 1970, the building opened for use. The Science Department inhabited this new building for three decades. According to longtime science faculty Michael Edgar, “the teachers adored it” because the structure met the early department’s needs and desires. At 47,500 square feet, the Science Building was divided by a concrete wall to create two large common labs on the north and south side. Along the middle, smaller spaces (now adapted into faculty offices or rooms for classes such as design) were designed as Harkness-style classrooms. This interior design allowed for fluid movement between classroom and laboratory learning; large lab spaces also invited collaboration across classes and the consolidation of various disciplines. The upper floor (now a technology and design studio) held faculty offices and the Weld Library, which shelved science books. In accordance with the departments’ request to limit external distractions, there were originally no windows except in two corridors on the eastern and western ends.
Abandonment and Re-Occupation
Towards the end of the 20th century, brutalism had lost its original charm and—unlike many other designs—failed to generate even nostalgic appeal. At Milton, the continued rise in acclaim of Milton’s humanities programs incited a desire for the construction of another science building on central campus. Without an immediate solution, Milton’s Board of Trustees forced the department to vacate the Science Building and migrate into a cohort of rented trailers by the Lower School Parking Lot, behind the current location of Pritzker Science Center. A plan to tear down the AMC did not see fruition due to the high cost of dismantling concrete.
In the abandoned ship of the Science Building, there was one sign of life: Cheney modified the upper floor into a studio of photography, architecture, and design.
The rest of the art department crammed in a trailer—about one quarter of the area of the AMC—behind the current location of Kellner Performing Arts Center, according to history teacher Joshua Emmott. The space severely limited its functions as the home for visual arts. In fact, the department had to move woodworking classes, previously mandatory for all K-12 students, into the RSG’s more spacious classrooms. During the early 2000s, the Trustees had sought out architects to design a new building promised to the Visual Arts Department. The plan to install a new building dissipated, however, because the Visual Arts Department and architects could not negotiate on a price and area.
Here, Cheney, who had played an instrumental role in advising all major Milton constructions since his arrival, stepped in with a solution which had skipped the notice of the Trustees: why not move the art department into the unoccupied Science Building? Conveniently, the Nesto Art Gallery, which hosts periodical exhibitions with student and professional artists, had already been situated in the Science Building basement.
In 2014, the Visual Art Department took over the Science Building and renamed it the Art and Media Center (AMC), marking “ the first time… in “modern” history [where] students [could] pursue any and all of Milton’s visual arts programs in one building,” wrote a 2014 article on the Milton website. Few structural changes were imposed except for two walls subdividing the area into four large ‘rooms.’ In line with technological advancements in the visual arts field, technology was ubiquitous in the new classrooms. “We haven’t precluded doing more in and for the arts,” Visual Arts teacher Ian Torney remarked about the move, “and the enhancements in this building are not only effective today; they look quite deliberately to a future that we regularly work to anticipate.”
For art classes, however, the AMC’s lack of windows remains an issue. Visual Arts Department Chair Jennifer Hughes grieves that “students cannot access the outside world, where they retrieve so much artistic inspiration.” Torney expressed that his Drawing and Painting Class shares similar distaste of the AMC’s grey, unadorned walls. Throughout the student body, affection for the AMC remains minimal. Yet, since funding remains an issue and the structure remains stubborn, the arts department can only “make the best of it,” says Hughes.
The Art and Media Center, previously the Science Building, was the first Milton building to shun tradition for innovation. From representing an era of both institutional and national change in the 1960s to serving as a tool for the advancement of Milton’s science department, its functions have adapted to the institution’s needs over the past decades. Yet, despite its innovative origins, its unique cement foundation renders it too costly to be either destroyed or innovated upon. Today, the AMC remains a statue of the 1960s, occupied by the Visual Arts Department with measurable complaints but little potential for renovation.