Wilson Commons at 40

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• published: 04 Apr 2016
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When a $9.5 million student union opened on the River Campus on April 4, 1976, three months before America’s Bicentennial celebration, the building’s famed architect offered a vision to match his grand design. “It will be a place to be, and a place to remember,” the legendary I.M. Pei predicted. “Ultimately, you will be the judge.” Forty years later, the building, Wilson Commons, has become a centerpiece of campus life—a place to study, eat, dance, drink coffee (and, at one time, beer), get a haircut, play billiards or violin, put out a weekly newspaper, and even serve as the stage for a student protest or two. The five-story building, accentuated with spiral staircases and 18,000 square feet of glass, turns 40 this year. To mark the April 4 anniversary, cake will be served, commemorative items will be handed out, and balloons will adorn the building. “Wilson Commons is one of the few places on campus that is truly indicative of our student body’s diversity,” says Samantha Lish ’16, a double major in public health and English from South Salem, New York. As administrative chair of the Campus Activities Board, Lish says she has spent more time at Wilson Commons than any building on campus. “I’ve pulled all-nighters in the CAB office working on last-minute Dandelion Day plans and spent hours in Starbucks,” she says. “Some of my fondest memories have been in Wilson Commons.” Perhaps best known by its honeycombed windows which were laid diagonally to put the tower of Rush Rhees Library in focus, Wilson Commons is shaped like a trapezoid—rumors have persisted for years that it was built to look like a giant pinball machine. Pei said he took “particular pleasure in seeing the building used in the way Mr. Joseph Wilson had envisioned it and in a way we designed it: as the center of University life.” “That is the landmark center of identity,” said Pei, whose building designs include the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris. Pei wanted an open look, commenting in 1976 that “there’s nothing more static and oppressive than large, monumental windowless space.” He brought in plenty of trees and plants, believing that people would “congregate if nature is brought inside.” That desire led to some fame —and a little mystery—when the building celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 1986. A New York Times article ranked Wilson Commons as the second-best student union in the country, behind the University of Texas. The article included a cartoon with a lizard wearing a Rochester sweatshirt. When Wilson Commons opened, podocarpus trees were shipped in from Florida but failed to acclimate and soon died. As the legend goes, one of the trees showed up bearing a lizard, who scampered off to campus parts unknown. “Nobody knows today exactly where the little guy wandered off to,” Rochester spokeswoman Jan Fitzpatrick said in 1986, “but it’s reassuring to know that he or she has achieved immortality in the New York Times.” Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/IJQC/