This week featured two tours, breaking the mold of the past few weeks. One of them was what I would have pictured when thinking of "architecture" before taking this course and the other one was a construction site. On a more serious note, Tuesday's tour featured the Mt. Hope Cemetery and Mausoleum and Thursday's tour featured the in-progress Center for Wounded Veterans at 908 Nevada St.
Our tour of the cemetery began with an exploration of the mausoleum, which featured the above-ground resting places of many families from the Urbana area. Apparently, we learned, it is quite common in other countries that families each have their own mausoleums wherein each person has his/her own designated location, and we even discussed the great above-ground mausoleums of Barcelona, Spain. I found it interesting that this would be the norm, as I would think it would be more costly than burial.
From the mausoleum, we began our walk of the cemetery grounds and learned about the different ways in which burial plots were grouped. It seemed that religion was the most common grouping for plots, a tradition which also stemmed from Europe and the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. We saw that Catholics, Jews, and various other religions were often buried nearby, as denoted by symbols on the head stones. Also present was a large area dedicated only to veterans of the United States Military. A vast field--with many plots who no longer or never had head stones--was hemmed in by large shrubs and a flag pole flying the flag of the United States. On each of the headstones that were present, there were notes of which wars each veteran had served in. Another interesting feature of these headstones is that they were flush with the ground to make the groundskeeper's job a little easier.
As we progressed through the cemetery to the western side, we found the final resting places of many of the prominent families of Champaign-Urbana. These graves were marked with much larger headstones made of much finer materials, alerting any visitors of that individuals prominence in their life time. The most interesting one we happened upon was the Atkins family plot, who were perhaps the richest family in the area and whose name the tennis center bears. A large monument marked the center of their plot, with each of the family members forming a ring around this monument. Four smaller monuments marked the four corners of the plot, also bearing the Atkins name. Several similar plots could be found throughout the cemetery, though none were quite as monumental as that of the Atkins family.
The big takeaway from the Tuesday tour was how an area of land that was seemingly devoid of "architecture" could have such planning behind the organization and behind the presentation.
Our tour Thursday took us to the Center for Wounded Veterans, a building that is currently under construction on Nevada St. We put on our handy dandy hard hats--which spared me from a dinger on one occasion--and stepped into the magical world of construction. This tour was a bit of a departure from our earlier tours as we discussed more in-depth how the actual building process took place, instead of analyzing the finished product.
Previously in the course we had discussed how form can sometimes follow function, and I think that this structure was rather evident of that. As its name suggests, the finished building will be serve as a home and a place of support for wounded veterans who have returned or will be returning from active duty. For this reason, the structure needs to cater towards those individuals to facilitate their transition into society. The building features two elevators for ease of access, wide hallways and corridors, as well as the framework for railed chairs to allow individuals to navigate their room independently. From the structure that we saw, it is clear the individuals to whom the building will cater.
This tour also allowed us to see in-depth the framework that supports the various structures around campus, as well all of the "guts" of the building, such as electrical and piping for water flow. It is not the most glamorous part of the building, but it is necessary to make sure that everything runs correctly, and this is a facet of the buildings that often go unnoticed once they are complete.
In learning about what function the building itself will serve, we also learned about the process of choosing a location for newly-constructed campus buildings. The University presented the developers with various locations, but the settled upon the Nevada Street location due to its proximity to campus and the main quad in particular, allowing for the veterans to more easily immerse themselves in the University and in civilian life in general. I found this discussion to be particularly intresting.
So, it was our first two-tour week in a few weeks, but both tours were very informative and provided a little variety in terms of subject matter.
