Kreis: Bennington’s CAPA

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(Host) When commentator Donald Kreis first heard of something called the
"Center for the Advancement of Public Action" at Bennington College,
and its 20 million dollar pricetag, he rolled his eyes. But he headed
for Bennington anyway to investigate.

(Kreis) "Center for the
Advancement of Public Action" sounds like fuzzy, feel-good philanthropic
phraseology designed to impress wealthy donors without actually causing
trouble. I found myself thinking: Nobody is spending 20 million bucks
on the real center of "public action" – that park in Manhattan that
spawned Occupy Wall Street.

But I’m here to testify that the
Center for the Advancement of Public Action – CAPA, as it’s known on
campus – is not a gimmick. And I know that not by speaking with anyone
from Bennington College. Their remarkable new building speaks for
itself.

CAPA exudes audacity, conviction and humanity.

It’s
audacious because the three rectangular structures that comprise the
project refuse to do what nearly all other new buildings in Vermont do:
resemble, or at least play nicely with, stuff that got built 100 or 200
years ago. The sheer horizontality of the CAPA, silhouetted against a
copse of tall trees, demonstrates that beauty can spring from courage
and innovation.

CAPA is about conviction because the architects
were so disciplined. The complex is about simplicity and proportion
rather than grandiosity or capital S style. In this sense, the building
is a direct descendant of the International Style buildings that sprang
up in the early 20th Century in Germany, France and even early Soviet
Russia. The architects who designed those buildings were sure they could
change the world by reducing buildings to their essence.

And
CAPA is about humanity because it is clad in leftover marble from
quarries all over Vermont. The stone rectangles are set in irregular
rather than smooth fashion, to create texture and to emphasize that they
really are piece of rock. Some of the pieces still bear signs of the
machines and tools that pulled them from the earth. The message here is
that the work of real people is embodied in the building.

The
program here is as you would expect – classrooms, meeting spaces,
offices, apartments for visiting scholars – with one exception. The
smallest of the structures is called the Lens and is nothing more, or
less, than an elegantly stark meditation space. The proposition here is
that the cultivation of visionary public activism is worthy of a built
environment that is beautiful rather than expedient. In an era when
public buildings equal cheap buildings, this is a powerful and
compelling statement.

To design the CAPA, Bennington turned to
the New York architectural duo of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. They
are among the most distinguished architects in the U.S. today, happily
lacking in the splashiness and flashiness of a Frank Gehry or a Daniel
Libeskind. Bennington has a long history of picking great architects.
That history continues here for sure.

I don’t know whether
Bennington College will succeed in reinvigorating the liberal arts by
orienting them toward public citizenship and social change. But after
checking out the new Center for the Advancement of Public Action, I’d
say Bennington is an institution worth keeping an eye on.

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