Campus Tour: Brutalist Architecture

fall campus pond two students on a bridge
Please note this event occurred in the past.
October 13, 2023 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm ET
Meet at the Lincoln Campus Center Information Desk, 1 Campus Center Way, UMass Amherst

Guided Campus Tour: UMass Amherst's Remarkable Brutalist Heritage

Join Professor Timothy M. Rohan for a walking tour of UMass Amherst's remarkable Brutalist heritage. Meet at the Lincoln Campus Center Information Desk, 1 Campus Center Way, UMass Amherst.

Click here for more information on the event.

View the UMass Amherst Brutalist Campus Guide.

This UMass BRUT event is held in partnership with Docomomo Tour Day USA. Docomomo is an international group that advocates for the preservation of modernist buildings, especially through educational events, such as tour days and conferences. 

After World War II, the University of Massachusetts Amherst embarked upon one of the most ambitious academic building programs in the United States. Following a 1963 master plan by renowned landscape architect, Hideo Sasaki, UMass Amherst employed some of the most distinguished architects of the time, among them Marcel Breuer, Kevin Roche, and Edward Durell Stone. The tour will investigate their distinctive Brutalist buildings and how they are now being reimagined after serving generations of students well.

The walking tour will meet in the lobby of the Lincoln Campus Center (Marcel Breuer, 1970) and will traverse the campus grounds, viewing buildings such as the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts (Kevin Roche, 1973) and its newly renovated Arts Bridge, Herter Hall (Coletti Brothers, 1968), Whitmore Hall (Campbell & Aldrich, 1967), Tobin Hall (Coletti Brothers, 1972), and the iconic W.E.B. DuBois Library (Edward Durell Stone, 1972). Come see UMass Brut’s new “Breuer Window” installation on the Bromery Center’s plaza!

UMass Brut is a collaborative advocacy group of faculty, staff, and students from UMass Amherst and UMass Dartmouth dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and reimagining their campuses’ Brutalist architecture. 
 
This tour will be led by Timothy M. Rohan, Chair and Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst with assistance from Ludmilla Pavlova Gillham, Senior Campus Planner.