Johnston’s latest book offers stories behind 117 University buildings

By Steven Goldsmith
News & Information

Norman Johnston cradles a steaming cup amid the pleasant hubbub of his college’s Design Coffee Shop, and notes that this little campus cafe once existed in defiance of University rules.

Norman Johnston stands in front of the entry to Architecture Hall - one of the 117 buildings chronicled in his latest book, University of Washington: The Campus Guide.

“It was known as ‘the speakeasy’ in the early 1960s,” recalls Johnston. “The University didn’t want any competition for the HUB.”

Only later, he says, did officials realize that coffee bars encourage interaction between students, faculty and staff, leading to today’s assortment of at least a dozen on campus.

To take coffee with Johnston, professor emeritus in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, is to share his intimacy with how the UW campus came to be the way it is.

That privilege now also comes in handy book form, thanks to his University of Washington: The Campus Guide, the latest in the Princeton Architectural Press series on distinguished American campuses.

Johnston’s glossy guidebook tells the story of each of the UW’s 117 buildings in thoughtful - sometimes opinionated - tones. Neither Balmer nor Mackenzie halls, the book informs us, “has mellowed much with the years.” Another stark edifice, Sieg Hall, Johnston writes, “is likely to win hands down” a vote for the least admired building on campus. But the book also goes on to explain the structural obstacles to giving Sieg a facelift.

Despite his aesthetic quibbles, Johnston’s overwhelming sentiment is affection for what he considers “the most spectacular campus of them all.”

“What is remarkable,” Johnston says, “is the degree to which this campus plan makes the region - the mountain, the lakes - a part of its ambience.”

The sloping, lakeside setting is the key, of course. But, as with the Design Coffee Shop - which still dispenses cappuccino in two College of Architecture and Urban Planning locations - happy deviations from official plans also have played a role. For example, delays in completing the 1904 campus master plan, which was hermetic and uninspired, left room for a more enlightened design to replace it later and create what became today’s campus with its breathtaking Rainier Vista.

But why do vistas matter, anyway? For one thing, Johnston says, surveys show that the quality of the campus environment is a major factor in where faculty, staff and students choose to go.

Johnston nurtured his relationship with the UW campus during his 41 years on the faculty. And even after he retired from the Department of Urban Planning and Design in 1989, he wove this knowledge into a sumptuous coffee-table book, The Fountain & the Mountain (University of Washington Press, 1995, $40).

Campus Guide

Unlike that weighty volume, Johnston’s latest effort - which retails for $24.95 - is portable and conveniently divided into 11 walking tours. Every building gets a Jay Dotson photograph and and a brief history by Johnston.

“We actually use it as a reference,” says Brian Richards, coordinator of the UW Visitors Information Center. “Now, when somebody asks what a certain building looks like, I have an actual book to show them.”

The walking-tour format follows the style of others in the Princeton Architectural Press series, which covers 11 campuses so far, including the likes of Virginia, Yale, Stanford, Duke and Harvard.

“UW was selected as the premier campus in the Pacific Northwest,” says Jan Cigliano, the series editor.

That the UW joined these elite campuses is “quite remarkable,” says Jeffrey Ochsner, who chairs the Department of Architecture.

“The Princeton Architectural Press will call national and international attention to the quality of our campus,” Ochsner says.

For Johnston, meanwhile, finishing the guidebook has led to no diminution of activity. Even before last month’s earthquake, he was working hard on a commission studying how to restore the Capitol building in Olympia.

But an equally important goal is to update The Fountain & the Mountain to reflect the UW’s recent flurry of construction. It’s a project close to his heart.

“In a disorderly world, campuses are serene and sheltering,” Johnston said. “There is just something about campuses.”

Johnston has original opinions on campus buildings

Few can claim to know the UW campus as thoroughly, or as thoughtfully, as professor emeritus Norm Johnston. Here are a few of the more provocative observations gleaned from a recent interview with him: