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New Design For A New Kind of Law School
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 The challenge"'facing·the architects, Ezra Charles Halpern,'very muchwanted the"de-
project. with relatively "modestar- EhrenkranLZ and Denis Kuhn of the Ehren- sign of the building to refleci the stance of the
chitectural ambitions, that in its krantz Group & Eckstut, was to convert this ~chooL
own way instills a degree of faith in cliche of the 19SO'sinto a viable horne for a
New York, faith in architecture and very different kind of institution. Moreover,
faith in the human race that few buildings of they had to do so within the constraints of a The aim was to
greater scope have been able to bring forth. tight budget and a city and state bureaucracy
The building is not tall, it is not dazzling, and that often seem to like nothing more than to breathe lif~ into a
it is not in Manhattan. It is not even new, stifle architectural creativity_ In a sense, the
though it has been newly renovated. It is im- problem was to bring some life into a build- structure that had
pn~ssive a.s much for its program, for what ing that had precious little of it to start with
~oes on inside it. as for its architecture - a"l- - but to do so without spending too much precious little of it to
though the careful, sensitive relationship be- money or creating something that would be
tween the architectural design and the activi- inappropriate for the very unusual use to start with.
ties that go on within the building could stand which the building would be put.
as a model for other projects elsewhere. For just asan obsolete junior high school is
The building Is the law school of the City not a typical law-school building, the City "We did not want the bUilding to look too
"- -:I,,': ,{..·sit,,"c{ Ne,~"':lMk., ,tn<tit7.>iilJUsedin a University law schoollSno(a typical law plush, too srand," Mr. Halper,-.,;;aia. :.:,J:~~.-2
former junior high school on Main Street in school. It was created In 1983as an alterna- an urban law school concerned with urban
Flushing, adjacent to the campus of Queens tive to traditional law schools, whose gradu- problems, and we did not want to sugarcoat
College_The building dates from 1953,and it ates tend to take up careers in corporate law the pill. But neither did we want to create a
is a typical New York City Board of Educa- firms and the like. The City University Law mean environment., or to do anything to giv~
lion product of the SO's- a dreary, institu- Schoolemphasizes training for what are gen- our students a sense that they were not in a
\." tional struciure of tan brick on the outside erally referred to as public-interest jobs: law special place. It is a delicate line."
~ and endless glazed-tile corridors on the in- involVingcivil liberties, the environment, de- The line is between grandeur and restraint,
side, more like a set for a movie aboul the fense of the indigent, and so forth. The and it has been elegantly and precisely
banality of high school than a place in which school's curriculum is aime<! at the student drawn. The building still looks like a public
to study law. The City University Law School who sees law'as an instru ment of sOciaI school, particularly on the -outside, where not
reminds us that the dreariest of public-school change rathdr than as a part of the world of much has change<! save for new windows
buildings is not beyond salvation" business and finance. Its founding dean. with bright green trim. With fl, however,
;~m~f!lTECT1JRE VIEW!,Paul_Goldberg~.t: