 "Photo: Peter Franklin/The Daily Texan")
A meeting spot. A giant alarm clock. A sniper’s nest. A symbol of victory.
The UT Tower means something different to every one of the thousands of students, faculty and visitors who make their way across campus every day. In 1934, Paul Phillippe Cret hoped the Tower would be a symbol of learning and the heart of UT, “the image carried in our memory when we think of the place.”
In addition to the Main Building and Tower, the French-born Cret was responsible for the construction of 18 other buildings on campus. From 1930 to 1945, he was the consulting architect for the University of Texas and created the 1933 comprehensive campus-development plan.
UT architecture professor Lawrence Speck described Cret’s legacy at UT as a mammoth one.
“It’s hard to imagine the UT campus without Cret. He fundamentally transformed the campus,” Speck said. “The Tower is an emblem of the University that has [remained] over many, many years. It has a kind of iconic quality that UT has depended on.”
Cret was preceded as consulting architect by Cass Gilbert from 1909 to 1922 and Herbert M. Green from 1920 to 1930. Gilbert was responsible for adopting the Spanish Renaissance style on campus that can be seen in Battle and Sutton halls.
His vision included a Main Mall extending toward the Capitol, a plaza and a new main building. Cret incorporated many elements from Gilbert’s plan, as well as buildings already built by Green, such as Waggener Hall, into his master campus plan and remained faithful to the Spanish-Mediterranean style.
UT architecture professor Richard Cleary said that Green and Cret both built on the style and language that Gilbert established.
“What they talked about at the time with him was a Spanish, colonial, Mediterranean feel,” Cleary said. “Something that somehow connected to colonial Mexico and back to the Renaissance of Spain became the driving language and theme in the sense of look.”
Cleary said Cret did not allow a set style to restrict his creativity or sense of design.
“The interesting thing about Cret is that he was very good in planning, but also really thoughtful in architecture, not just a cookie cutter approach to the grammar given to him,” Cleary said. “Cret created incredible variety in the way you handle familiar materials. The Union, Goldsmith Hall, they are interesting buildings in the way they are put together.”
Cret’s work includes classic UT buildings like the Texas Union, Hogg Memorial Auditorium and the Texas Memorial Museum. His buildings have become the symbols of the University, but his plan for a new main building and Tower was controversial at the time, sparking protests and petitions from long-time faculty and alumni.
Old Main, started in 1882, was the first building built on campus and housed the library, gymnasium, auditorium and classrooms. In her history of campus buildings, “Brick by Golden Brick,” UT historian Catherine Berry wrote, “The venerable building had for many years been to alumni the primary symbol of The University of Texas.” Taps was played when Old Main was torn down in 1934.
Despite a movement by alumni to rebuild Old Main brick by brick, plans to rebuild or construct a memorial out of the pieces never materialized. According to a June 1989 article in the Austin American-Statesman, Old Main bricks were recycled and used in homes and buildings around Austin.
“The administration side of the University felt pretty strongly that Old Main was outdated. There were some technical problems with the building, and it was no longer really serving the scale of university that UT was becoming,” Cleary said. “Some people really were sad about it, but the overall community bought into the notion of progress.”
Cret’s tenure at the University spanned the length of the Great Depression and World War II. Berry writes that funding for the new Main Building and other works, including Roberts Hall and Prather Hall dormitories, came from $2,800,000 from the Available University Fund, a bequest from Col. George W. Littlefield and a grant and loan from the Public Works Administration.
“It’s similar to what we’re going through right now, the economic stimulus plan of the New Deal,” Cleary said. “The WPA in its effort to really keep and provide work for people and jumpstart the economy was funding stuff all across the U.S. The [UT] projects had good lobbyists that made a strong case that the buildings were public works and in the scope and spirit of the New Deal.”
Cret’s vision is still reflected in the present day UT campus, which Cleary said he feels is because of Cret’s evolutionary approach to architecture.
“Cret understood that architecture was changing, and modern architecture was coming along, and he was evolutionary in his approach,” Cleary said. “He was willing to go with the future, not freezing the past. The pretty fascinating thing is you can see him deliberately evolving and responding to broader changes.”
Speck writes in his essay “Campus Architecture: The Heroic Decades” that the ethos of UT is best contained in the campus. The physical space and architectural style of campus make a big impression on students, faculty and alumni, especially on prospective students, Speck said.
“Students are cognitive of the fact that their decision about coming to UT had a lot to do with what the campus looked like,” he said. “You can’t look inside the classrooms and laboratories, but you can see the campus.”
3 comments
had as part of his campaign platform to change the
words above the tower entry "ye shall not the truth
and the truth shall set ye free" to "money talks".
he won.