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\. New Design for a New Kind of Law School
Interior of t~eieconditioned jUI}iorhigh school in Flushing, Queens, 'that is now the City University Law School'
T
HlS IS A STORY ABOUT A SMALL
project. with relatively "modestar-
chitectural ambitions, that in its
own way instills a degree of faith in
New York, faith in architecture and
faith in the human race that few buildings of
greater scope have been able to bring forth.
The building is not tall, it is not dazzling, and
it is not in Manhattan. It is not even new,
though it has been newly renovated. It is im-
pn~ssive a.s much for its program, for what
~oes on inside it. as for its architecture - a"l-
though the careful, sensitive relationship be-
tween the architectural design and the activi-
ties that go on within the building could stand
as a model for other projects elsewhere.
The building Is the law school of the City
"- -:I,,': ,{..·sit,,"c{ Ne,~"':lMk., ,tn<tit7.>iilJUsedin a
former junior high school on Main Street in
Flushing, adjacent to the campus of Queens
College_The building dates from 1953,and it
is a typical New York City Board of Educa-
lion product of the SO's- a dreary, institu-
\." tional struciure of tan brick on the outside
~ and endless glazed-tile corridors on the in-
side, more like a set for a movie aboul the
banality of high school than a place in which
to study law. The City University Law School
reminds us that the dreariest of public-school
buildings is not beyond salvation"
The challenge"'facing·the architects, Ezra
EhrenkranLZ and Denis Kuhn of the Ehren-
krantz Group & Eckstut, was to convert this
cliche of the 19SO'sinto a viable horne for a
very different kind of institution. Moreover,
they had to do so within the constraints of a
tight budget and a city and state bureaucracy
that often seem to like nothing more than to
stifle architectural creativity_ In a sense, the
problem was to bring some life into a build-
ing that had precious little of it to start with
- but to do so without spending too much
money or creating something that would be
inappropriate for the very unusual use to
which the building would be put.
For just asan obsolete junior high school is
not a typical law-school building, the City
University law schoollSno(a typical law
school. It was created In 1983as an alterna-
tive to traditional law schools, whose gradu-
ates tend to take up careers in corporate law
firms and the like. The City University Law
Schoolemphasizes training for what are gen-
erally referred to as public-interest jobs: law
involVingcivil liberties, the environment, de-
fense of the indigent, and so forth. The
school's curriculum is aime<! at the student
who sees law'as an instru ment of sOciaI
change rathdr than as a part of the world of
business and finance. Its founding dean.
The New York TJme51.Fred R. Conrad
.- ,
Charles Halpern,'very muchwanted the"de-
sign of the building to refleci the stance of the
~chooL
The aim was to
breathe lif~ into a
structure that had
precious little of it to
start with.
"We did not want the bUilding to look too
plush, too srand," Mr. Halper,-.,;;aia. :.:,J:~~.-2
an urban law school concerned with urban
problems, and we did not want to sugarcoat
the pill. But neither did we want to create a
mean environment., or to do anything to giv~
our students a sense that they were not in a
special place. It is a delicate line."
The line is between grandeur and restraint,
and it has been elegantly and precisely
drawn. The building still looks like a public
school, particularly on the -outside, where not
much has change<! save for new windows
with bright green trim. With fl, however,
;~m~f!lTECT1JRE VIEW!,Paul_Goldberg~.t:
A New Design for a New Kind of Law School
)
there is a substantial transformation. The
curse of the 1950's has been amply remo"ed,
and just in time, given how chic the design of
that decade has begun to become. But to keep
the original Interiors for t~ sake of 50's chic
would hardly have conveyed the right mes-
sage here, which is to create out of this old
monster.a 'more individualized, intimate and
even nurturing kind of environment.
Virtually all of the original classrooms are
now gone. their spaces thrown together into
"houses." or units; each house contains a
mix of rooms including an office in which stu-
- dents have their own desks. a library with
computer terminals, several faculty offices
and conference rooms and a clerical station.
The walls of the front rooms of each house
project out into the central corridor and are
painted in soft. somewhat trendy colors -
there is a grayish plum that is used most fre-
quently. amounting to a signature color for
:.he building's interior.
The houses. which function like small law
firms under the guidance of the faculty mem
bers whose offices are part of each house
suite. are in themselves an innovation at the
City University Law SchooL They are in-
tended to break down the school into small
and manageable units. to emphasize the im-
portance of teamwork. and to give the stu-
dents, who are all commute'rs. a sense of
some personal space within the'school.
What is most interesting about the houses
from an architectural standpoint. however. is
not their physical form. which is appealing
but hardly exceptional esthetically. It is the
statement the houses make about the rela-
tionship of a functional program to architec-
tural form. Here. innovation came not out of
an architect's predetermined ideas, but out
of a genuine partnership between a client
who thought and an architect who listened,
Mr. Halpern and his colleagues were at·
tempting to create a new kind of legal educa·
tion and sought an architectural form that
would be appropriate to it; Me Ehrenkrantz
thought along with them, and together a form
was arrived at that made sense.
The rest of the building consists of a three-
story library that was created out of the for-
mer gymnasium and a locker room below; a
large lecture hall made out of the original
auditorium; and central administrative of·
fices. lounges, and a cafeteria. There Is a
relatively consistent degree of architectura 1
expression to most of it. Here and there
aspects of the original building. such as the
glazed tile on the central corridor walls. peek
through. but the softly colored Ehrenkrantz
interventions, far gentler in tone, predomi-
nate. ,
The library is the most ambitious single
space, with a high, angled screen wall and a
diagonal central axis, a deliberate attempt to
"break out of the box" of the old gym, in Me
Ehrenkrantz's words. The library also has in·
formal reading spaces beside windows that
overlook the Queens College campus,
There is no particular style to most of these
interior spaces. The color scheme, appealing
as it is, seems a too-meek hint at post-mod-
ernism, while the gridded pipe rail and glass
block bespeak other design cliches Excellent
as this fe'novation is. it is nowhere Ilear the
cutting edge. But it hardly has to be. The les-
son here is not esthetic innovation; it is
thoughtfulness and competence. and most of
all, appropriateness. _
At a time when both architecture and the
law are frought with arrogance, when a sense
of professional hubris seems sometimes to
have overtaken an entire generation of both
architects and lawyers. this project comes as
a breath of fresh air. Its only real equivalent
in New York in terms of sheer. utter right- .
ness-is the construction of the towers of the
cathedral of SL John the Divine in Morning-
side Heights. where young New Yorkers are .
being trained in the art of stonecutting. In-
stead of being an intrusion into the life of the
city. this has truly become a community
project. _
At the cathedral. as at City University Law
School. architecture has put itself at the serv-
ice of an educational goal, and the mission
serves architecture at the same time. In the
New York City of the 1980's, that is as rare as
it is refreshing, 0