The "Campaign for Princeton"

The keystone to the recent architectural development of the campus was the $410 million "Campaign for Princeton." Drawing on the recommendations of the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life, or CURL, the University used this campaign to establish five residential colleges for underclassmen: the existing Wilson and Princeton Inn (later Forbes) Colleges and the new Rockefeller, Mathey, and Butler Colleges. Rockefeller and Mathey carved out of the Collegiate Gothic dorms and dining halls centered around Madison/Commons complex.

The core of Butler College, meanwhile, was the dormitories comprising New New Quad. With Wilcox Hall,
the dining facility of Wilson College, already at capacity, it was clear that Princeton needed to build a new dining and social facility for Butler College. The University commissioned Robert Venturi '47 to design the new structure, known as Wu Hall.

The resulting design reflects Wu's awkward location, a long narrow site between Wilcox and 1915 Halls, facing the low modern structures of New New Quad to the south and the Collegiate Gothic of Patton and Walker to the north. The curved, apse-like window at the southern end of Wu serves as a bridge between the old campus and the new, while the color of the brick blends with 50s-era 1915 Hall. And Venturi paid careful attention to give Wu Hall touches unique to Princeton -- images of Tigers and other familiar icons of the University.

In addition to designing this seminal building, Venturi has exerted a strong influence on the other architects who have worked at Princeton in the last decade. The expressive exteriors of several of the newer buildings such as the Computer Science Building, in part,
reflect Venturi's successful use of ornamentation on Wu Hall. Encouraged perhaps by the positive response to Wu, the University became more open to taking chances in its choices of architectural designs. Alan Chimacoff's design for Bowen Hall,
for instance, is a far cry from the cautious modern buildings of the early and mid-1960s.