Intrepid Bwog contributor, frequent Bwog commenter, and skyscraper enthusiast Alex Weinberg sends us a tip about some questionable iconogrpahy:

"KSA is advertising some sort of culture show on a thousand balloons and fliers and posters all over the campus. Non engineers/architects may not appreciate this, but they completely fucked up and branded their show with the skyline of CHICAGO."

How does he know? Well, that big building second from the left appears to be the Sears Tower, not the Empire State Building. "The Empire State Building has one antenna built on the original mooring mast," says Alex. "The Sears Tower has double antennae (kind of more, now)."

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive: the two skylines placed side to side (or top to bottom) for comparison, after the jump.

While Bwog enjoyed the sunny weather on such a splendid day, several things also caught our attention:

• Bacchanal festivities coincided with today's, er, other special celebrations, including Battle of the Bands, a much-too-limited barbecue, a moonwalk, and a sorority-sponsored "munchies" sale. Columbia's beloved mascot was also spotted roaming about (pictured to the right), giving hugs and shaking hands with the chilled-out student crowd around College Walk. In the meantime, pre-frosh were abundant for SEAS Days on Campus. Talk about hyperbolic advertising.
  

• Bwog reader Alex Port brings us news that the Joseph Urban stage models on the third floor of Butler (which have been there for ages) have been removed. What will the Butler treasure chest reveal to us next? Perhaps Robert Moses models instead?
  
  
• As if the to-be-built Northwest Science Building weren't enough, the J-School plans on doing some construction of its own. The Stabile Student Center is scheduled to open in Fall 2007, complete with café space, outdoor seating, and a glass enclosure. Glass is all the rage in these parts, it seems...

• Since we're on the theme of architecture: SEAS Class Day speaker Santiago Calatrava has designed a 2,000-foot tall Chicago tower that could trump every other building in America. Daaamn. [Insert "ivory tower" joke here.]
  

• Spectator's most recent multimedia project happens to be on the arrest of Robert Williams, although it seems a bit New York Post-ish for the Spec's image. Really, "Perp Walk," guys?
  

- MIP

It won't be completed during the studies of any current Columbia undergrad, but the lucky prefrosh admitted to the Class of 2011 will, at least, be able to feast their eyes on this sight by their senior year. Behold, the José Rafael Moneo-designed Northwest Science Building, to be constructed over the erstwhile tennis courts between Havemeyer and Pupin: the rendering at right, among others, was recently placed on the University's construction updates site, allowing for an early sneak peak.

Bwog isn't a stickler for traditionalist architecture, but we wonder what happened to Moneo's "extreme sensitivity to context," a factor PrezBo highlighted when the designer was selected to help fill this key gap in McKim, Mead, & White's historic plan. And even if a little architectural pizazz is what this part of campus needs, one wonders at the scale of a structure that overwhelms even prodigious Pupin. Of course, the architect faced significant challenges while designing the structure - building over the gym, insulating labs from the subway, and dealing with the drop-off between the campus and the street. And at least we know now that construction of the building won't, in fact, close Dodge. Still, we're sure at least some are bound to think that Barnard's Nexus will have some Columbia competition for "ugliest building on Broadway" when the next decade dawns. More renderings, after the jump...

-CJS

Bwog could not help but notice architecture students toiling in the spartan studios of Buell Hall in the early morning hours last week on something very much like this vaguely geodesic sculpture, which has now managed to find its way to the puny lawn in front of Avery. Is it someone's desperate attempt to stand out during midterms? A piece of cultural commentary on landscaping invoking skeletal meta-shrubbery? Or does it mark the potential return of former arch school dean Bernard Tschumi, who designed the almost equally deconstructivist Lerner Hall and whose books include notoriously impenetrable philosophical diatribes on the nature of "man and object"? Perhaps we will only understand once we, too, swallow architecture students' patented nightly melange of Adderall and Red Bull and wander their still-crowded studios at 4:30AM...

-CJS

In which Bwog staffer Mark Krotov familiarizes us with the places you can find him when he's supposed to be in class.

I love inhospitable environments. When placed in settings that are unfriendly, unattractive, or simply odd, I find that I enjoy myself a little more than I do in a place that is comfortable or accommodating, but what really thrills me are those places that are more misguided than intentionally uninviting. Places like Lerner are wild because many smart people spent a lot of time pondering how to create a comfortable student center, and got it absurdly wrong.

Such is the case with the EC courtyard. Besides the uncomfortable benches (which, in themselves, are a death knell for viable public space), I think that what I love most about the EC courtyard is its self-selection of weather phenomena: good weather is excluded from this imposing, threatening space, while bad weather thrives there.

'subtly layered urban experience'
'the weight of history and the lightness of clouds'
'the work of a master who has reached full maturity.'

Esoteric new form of free verse? No--just selections from today's New York Times review of the latest creation of Renzo Piano, the Italian architect whom Columbia has retained to design its space-agey new campus in Manhattanville.

Somehow, Bwog doubts that the NYT's rave is going to make these guys roll over and let Columbia move in.

It's hard enough to be an undergraduate, but how can you possibly go to class if all the buildings look the same? To let you know where you stand, Bwog presents a quiz that challenges your Columbia knowledge. Is it Havemeyer? Is it Hamilton? No, probably not. Building names have been blurred to protect the innocent, and scroll to the end for the answers.



Building A

In which Bwog staffer Mark Krotov familiarizes us with the places where you can find him when he's supposed to be in class.
On Friday nights, the entrance to East Campus is a stampede of excited drunkards and impatient Barnard girls, all waiting to enter a monolithic structure that is an almost mythical haven for parties of all kinds. But for some visitors to East Campus, neither their entrance nor their final destination is the least bit dramatic. These visitors, either conference attendees or parents who want to stay very close to their children (like my mom, who visited last weekend), get a sleek blue pass key that the guards swipe without hesitation, and which opens their rooms on the sixth floor of EC.

While prettying herself up for her launch party this evening (AT MONA on Amsterdam b/t 108 & 109), the Bwog has been pondering her place in history, especially as it related to the rise and fall of Fascism, which, it turns out, Columbia is not so far removed from.

Casa Totalitarina
By Jacob Jacobsonian

One of Columbia's tour guides recently confided to a group of tourees that the Casa Italiana — the structure that today houses the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America — had been an outpost for the dissemination of fascist propaganda prior to the Second World War. At first, one might consider this to be a bit of propaganda itself, like so much of the Columbia trivia garbled over gargling at the West End. (And for the record, Wien Hall was not built to house the criminally insane). Having heard this particular rumor repeated far too often, and vowing never to let hapless tour guides upstage us, The Blue and White decided to investigate further.

Research in the archives unearthed an anonymous article in a 1934 issue of The Nation, alleging that the Casa had become "an unofficial adjunct of the Italian Consul-General's office in New York and one of the most important sources of fascist propaganda in America." The rumors, apparently, did not begin in the Admissions Department.

Oh, snap! Gothamist hates on Barnard's new student center. We don't think it's that ugly-- do you?

In which Bwog staffer Mark Krotov familiarizes us with the places where you can find him when he's supposed to be in class.

When I took chemistry in high school, I sat in front of a sink that I regularly turned on and off to prevent myself from falling asleep. When Columbia students take chemistry, they take it in the most beautiful lecture hall on campus, 309 Havemeyer. As any General Chemistry student could tell you, to call 309 a classroom is akin to referring to calling Low Steps a back staircase.