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The Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Space Race. The University of Colorado Boulder (CU) Engineering Center (EC). These four things are, albeit surprisingly, all intertwined. The EC was completed in 1966: during the Cold War, four years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in the midst of the Space Race (three years before Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon). One might question what a timeline has to do with a building that has stood on CU’s campus for the past 55 years. The answer is: everything. 

The EC is one of the most controversial, if not the most controversial, building at CU. Even as the EC was the cover page feature in the November 1966 publication of Progressive Architecture, the building was facing criticism from alumni and local critics. It’s the punchline of countless jokes and its origins are the subject of constant rumors. If you ask an engineering student or perhaps a CU tour guide, you might get a variety of theories about why the EC looks the way it does. Common responses include that it was built to resemble the flatirons; made to resemble a Colorado mine shaft; designed by an alumnus; and my personal favorite--designed by an architecture student for a final design project that received a failing grade. When the student graduated and became successful, the university asked for a donation to help build the EC, and the alumnus agreed on the condition that CU use the building they had designed during their time at CU. To the probable dismay of many, these theories are (mostly) false.

Now, this is not the first time the EC has been written about in Colorado Engineer Magazine (CEM). An article in the March 1979 issue of CEM by Chris Kitze discussed how the EC was determined necessary by a 1959 committee, who also dictated the building be constructed in a modern style to invoke the progressive nature of the research conducted within. Modern research that would support the wave of technological development sweeping the nation throughout the 1950’s and 60’s tumultuous social and political movements.

The EC was designed by Architectural Associates of Colorado Partner in Charge William C. Muchow with design consultants Pietro Belluschi and Sasaki, Walker & Associates. Muchow was a Denver native, born in 1922. He graduated from North Denver High School and subsequently attended Columbia University and the University of Notre Dame before serving in the Navy for four years. He ultimately received his BS in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1946, attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and returned to Denver in 1949.

With technological development, science and research at the forefront of society during the Cold War, the purpose of the new EC was, according to Progressive Architecture, to “provide laboratories, classrooms, and faculty offices for five engineering departments of the University: Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, and Aero-Engineering.” Progressive Architecture described the building as being the product of an “environmentalist” architectural philosophy, which allows for the function of the building to express itself. The philosophy prefers a tightly knit building and site, allowing the environment and surroundings to influence the design. The resulting structure is meant to be unpredictable. “It is not an immutable perfection, but designed for change and for growth.”

The site planners and administration at the time wanted to maintain an aspect of cohesion between the EC and the rest of the campus, but the precise style was left up to the architects. What resulted was a fragmented brutalist structure. Labs, offices, and classrooms were assembled into a continuous structure wrapping around the open courtyards in the center. Each department was given its own section of the building, meant to act as a circulation center and provide unity within departments. The shape of the building as a whole is meant to reflect the “form of the mountains behind.” The alumni journal editor in 1966, Russ Olin said of the EC, “it is a campus within a campus.” 

Since its original construction, the EC has been modified countless times to better fit the needs of the students. Modifications have included changing the revolving front entrance doors to accommodate for disabilities, adding more women’s restrooms, opening up the lobby to create a collaborative area, and most recently the Caruso Connection between the business and engineering schools. Janet Tsai, an instructor in the Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Plus departments, hopes that the building will continue to develop not only to meet the needs of the students but to build a sense of identity through the college. Tsai says that it’s “common on a lot of college campuses to have the ugly building be the science building or the engineering building, but it helps encourage this building of identity [through the College of Engineering], because we’re all in it together.”

If, today, you find yourself getting lost in a concrete stairwell, or happening upon a urinal in a women’s washroom, take a minute to reflect on the time and context in which the EC was built.  The focus of American culture was on research and technological development, not collaboration. Remember that getting lost is simply a right of passage and that urinals in a women’s restroom can represent that the building is actually meeting its intended design: for growth and for change, and while it may be just a little bit different, it’s ours.