DeWolfe: Dorm Life in DeLap of Luxury

Mather House. Peabody Terrace. Holyoke Center. Functional? Sure. But aesthetically pleasing? Well, that's another story.

For the past 30 years, Harvard seems to have fallen into the habit of constructing positively hideous modern buildings. But students and architecture critics alike are looking to this year's construction of the DeWolfe Street dormitory to break Harvard's masochistic mold of modernism.

Lecturer in Architecture Jeremiah Eck has said the twin buildings feel "like a condominium project rather than a student dorm." But most students who are being given DeWolfe rooms by six affiliated houses don't seem to mind.

Although some houses are asking newly-named DeWolfers to crowd a bit, the complex's air-conditioned, kitchen-equipped, cable-ready rooms seem like more than fair compensation. Now complete except for finishing touches such as landscaping, the complex will eventually house more than 200 students from Dunster, Eliot, Kirkland, Mather, Quincy and Winthrop Houses, along with tutors and junior faculty members.

Of course, not even a suite at the Ritz-Carlton would please every undergraduate, and some students have voiced concerns about how the new housing complex will affect the house system.

Critics say that putting sophomores in the new complex will hinder their transitions from the Yard and make them less active in the houses. They say that space devoted to kitchens might have been better devoted to single bedrooms for residents of the new complex. And they say that it is a long walk from DeWolfe St. to Eliot House for dinner.

But administrators say that the new undergraduate housing complex--the first since Canaday Hall opened in the early 1970s--is necessary in order meet student desires to live near the Charles River and not in Radcliffe Quad. They also say that more housing capacity will allow the College to better accomodate transfer students, undergraduates who miss housing deadlines and students who take time off to work or travel.

For a while, administrators and students fretted over the possibility that the DeWolfe St. Complex would not be open this fall at all. A.U.S. District Court ban on all new sewer hook-up permits was imposed in February, leaving College officials ensuring that next fall students will move into September space for students in hotels and Harvard Real Estate properties.

Harvard was worried enough to actively lobby the legislature to pass a bill that would have the effect of lifting the sewer ban. And Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 says he even mentioned DeWolfe St. housing and the sewer ban in his first meeting with President-designate Neil L. Rudenstine.

In late May, the sewer ban was finally lifted, ensuring that next fall, students will move into what is, by Harvard standards at least, the lap of luxury.