YUFA
News
Gene
Desfor and Liette Gilbert, Faculty of
Environmental Studies
Spaces
are produced, abandoned, reclaimed, and when budget allows remodelled. The
new Schulich School of Business and Executive Learning Center is an ode to
power, space and natural light, but it also represents a commitment to
redefine management education by carving its place in the international
educational market. York, like an expecting parent, beams with pride with
the arrival of the newly born.
At
the outset, we want to say that it is altogether fitting that we have been
asked to comment on the new buildings. As part of the cascading effects of
the business school's relocation to its new spacious home, we in the
Faculty of Environmental Studies are scheduled to move next year into the
old Schulich building—becoming the “new” Health, Nursing, and
Environmental Studies building. Our earlier expectations have soured now
that we have had an opportunity to compare the new structures with the
dark and dinginess to which we have been relegated. Dark and dinginess are
actually the terms that served as the antithetical concept of the new
buildings. Our primary impression of the yet to be completed $102 million
335,000 square foot light-filled structure is that it separates those who
have from those who do not. As we toured corporate financed spaces (e.g.,
the CIBC Marketplace, the RBC Capital Markets Wing, the Manualife
Periodical Room, or the Scotiabank Student Services and International
Relations suite) with elegant Algonquin limestone flooring, spaciously
curved corridors and state of the art electronic instructional equipment
in every naturally-lighted lecture hall and classroom, we knew that we
were the folks from the other side of the tracks.
The
new building complex is evidently gaining wide praise. Its concept of a
campus within a campus features four wings radiating from the CIBC
Marketplace, and wrapped around three courtyards that allows for natural
light and views on the surrounding campus. Above the ground floor reserved
to instruction and service spaces, wings are organized according to
faculty, support and administrative offices, library, and executive
learning suites). This layout paradoxically promotes the marketplace as
the point of convergence of interactions for students and faculty, and
yet, it also segregates faculty and administrative offices in the curvy
hall of the Royal Bank Wing.
Fresh
flowers at the reception desk, limestone floors and paneling, transparent
and polished glass walls, light color wood panels blending with earth-tone
colored walls, exposed “green” concrete are features that give the
building a look closer to an elegant museum or art gallery rather than a
school (as most of us know it).
Success stories are expected to become part of a permanent
collection.
To
some extent, corporate power extends to benefit students who surprisingly
get a wide range of spaces in which to perform and compete. Schulich
students are getting more for their fees: wireless internet cafés,
project rooms with plasma screens, classrooms with natural light, study
rooms with comfortable furniture and fireplace. And they will soon also
receive an electronic security card which will give them access to these
spaces while, by the same process, denying others from them.
Despite
years of under funding of Ontario universities, Dean Horváth convinced
York's administration that Schulich required a grand building that would
embody its standing as one of the top business schools in the world. He
raised about $24 million of private funding primarily from the coffers of
corporations, another $30 million from the province's SuperBuild program,
and it has been reported that York contributed $18 million. Horváth sees
the new complex as part of his aggressive efforts to make Schulich
competitive with the world's best business schools. Horváth instructed
Hariri Pontarini Architects and Robbie/Young + Wright Architects to create
world-calibre buildings that would set new standards for quality and
design. A recent article in the Report on Business Magazine highlighted
how the buildings' design is intended to embody this effort: “The
sweeping lines, stunning glass vistas and high-tech sophistication
communicate a boldness of purpose a confidence and a cutting-edge feel
that capture the school's character.”
In
an educational system driven by corporate logic, it is understandable that
the business school has succeeded in erecting the most spacious building
at York.
But it has also constructed serious spatial injustice on campus.