By James D. Graham

People go through growing pains once in their life; institutions have them somewhat more frequently. The University of Virginia is in the thick of them right now, and although the aches aren't fun to put up with, rest assured that UVA will be (if nothing else) a bit bigger when all's said and done.

Several recent building projects on Grounds are at or nearing completion, including the herculean addition to Scott Stadium, a new biomedical engineering building behind the University Hospital, and additions to both Clarke Hall and the Darden School of Business. And there's plenty more growth on tap, including a revamped fine arts complex as well as the much-hyped replacement for University Hall, which is currently held together by the architectural equivalent of giant rubber bands.

As if in atonement for the recent focus on stretching its extremities, UVA is giving the Lawn itself something much bigger than a fresh coat of paint. On October 18, 2001, the University's Board of Visitors announced a major overhaul of the south end of the Lawn, including the demolition of New Cabell Hall. To meet the need for classrooms, a new building will be constructed on the site, and another will be erected in the so-called B1 parking lot across Jefferson Park Avenue. Neighboring Cocke and Rouss Halls will be renovated as well. The project, from start to finish, will involve half a decade of construction, with scheduled completion in 2007.

Like it or loathe it, New Cabell Hall will be forever emblazoned in countless memories of years spent at the University of Virginia, but not in the romantically iconic way that the Rotunda and Lawn trigger pangs of nostalgia-- New Cabell's just there in the background, used to being ignored, used to being picked last in gym class, forgettable but somehow not forgotten.

Heirs to the prestigious legacy of John Russell Pope (architect of the Jefferson Memorial), the firm of Eggers and Higgins designed New Cabell as well as the Newcomb Hall student center and the McCormick Road residence halls in the early '50s as a result of the post-WWII boom in student enrollment.

Deemed "grossly insensitive" by Richard Guy Wilson in his introduction to The Campus Guide of the University of Virginia, New Cabell has had it coming for a while now. The needs of the University have changed so much in the last few decades that many of its facilities are now inadequate. Among New Cabell's lowlights are a bonanza of ill-tempered window air conditioning units, the most labyrinthine handicapped access known to humankind, and a general disregard for the southern entry to the academical village. Not to mention standard-issue blandness and desks so uncomfortable you can't even sneak a nap. (My personal grudge against the building, for the sake of disclosure, is the inordinately slick stairwells, cause of injurious humiliation to me on two separate rainy-day occasions.)

But let's talk numbers. An independent planning firm determined that the University needed 285,000 square feet of space on the site to accommodate the steadily growing student body-- New Cabell measures in at 160,000.

"What we're trying to do is address the space needs of the college," says Joseph Grasso, Associate Dean of Planning and Operations for the College of Arts and Sciences. "We have relatively significant deficits in space compared to our peer institutions--we're adding classrooms, faculty offices, and common spaces for students."

"The College is faced with 22 buildings with an average age of 62 years. Our aspiration for the south Lawn complex is to modernize the physical infrastructure."

The new complex is budgeted at $125 million, and part of the Board of Visitors' decision to demolish was that such a large-scale renovation might cost even more. One might imagine that no expense would be spared to renovate New Cabell if it possessed more charisma, but the structure has assumed the status of aged workhorse rather than prize-winning thoroughbred, and it would seem that now is the time for it to be unceremoniously put down.

Not that New Cabell succumbed without a fight. "I thought it could be saved and reused," admits Samuel "Pete" Anderson III, Architect for the University, "but when you think about the potential of the site without New Cabell, it's quite exciting-- I gave up gracefully."

Part of the excitement about the old building's demise stems from Jefferson's original intention that the south end of the Lawn be left open, creating the architectural metaphor of a student's journey from the shelter of books into the untamed potential of the post-grad world. Tearing down New Cabell "would play down the building bulk and open the southern view" (although stately Old Cabell, which to my eye blocks off at least 80% of the view, isn't going anywhere. Not that I'd want it to.) Also, the illustrious B1 parking lot will act as a geographical and topical nexus binding the University's many disciplines by "bringing together the basic sciences from the east, the health sciences from the west, and the social sciences from the north," according to Anderson.

Equally exciting is the realization that the posterior bulge of Old Cabell Hall, rendered invisible for half a century, will be revealed once more. Home to some of the finest spaces on Grounds (including the most excellently endowed music library, curvaceous and luminous beneath the vaults of the vast auditorium above), the semi-Rotundal echoes of the southern facade deserve to be freed from the oppression of New Cabell's consuming bulk. "We're trying to heal, connect, and grow," says Grasso. "The healing part is to make a historically sound connection between the Lawn and the new buildings." And last but not least, the University should thrill at the possibility of having a viable, meaningful entrance from JPA, which has always come across like a backdoor to be slunk into if you're under 21.

Last December, the University announced that New York-based Polshek Partnership-- founded in 1963 by James Stewart Polshek and winner of the coveted Architecture Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1992-- will design these new structures for the south Lawn. "We interviewed six firms over two days-- it was the best, most energizing interview series I've ever been in," says Anderson. "Everyone had major contributions, but Polshek put it all together better than anyone else."

Polshek's biggest archisplash of late was the 2000 opening of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, replacing the Hayden Planetarium at the 128-year-old American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The addition's sphere-in-cube geometrical heroics and delicately wrought transparency have made it a hit among visitors and critics alike-- New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp called it "New York's millennium gift to itself: a building that forges a link between modern architecture and its Enlightenment roots... a rare instance of architecture prevailing over the reflex impulse to preserve." See where this is going?

While I'd never have the misinformed audacity to suggest that a lone critic's riff on just one of the Polshek Partnership's myriad buildings constitutes a summation of the firm's everlasting design principles, I like to imagine that it's a sign of what's in store for the University. Might the new New Cabell forge those same links between the old and the new, the arts and the sciences, the human and the monumental that make the Rose Center the subject of fairly unilateral adoration? Could it be that the University will once again embrace the notion that aesthetic departures can be as sensitive and responsive as stylistic references? After all, it was ol' T.J. himself who wrote, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." Wrap the Rose Center in red brick and white trim, and all of a sudden it's not so special anymore.

On the other hand, working on the Lawn (declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987) demands the utmost sensitivity--balances must be struck. "I don't think we're going to get something that's just Jeffersonian pavilions, nor will it be something with no two parallel lines," says Anderson.

Grasso concurs. "The college would like a design that conforms to the traditions of UVA but also expands upon it. There are certain historical boundaries and constraints in which we have to work. We want to build an innovative and refreshing building, but we have to be delicate."

The designers, including Polshek, Todd Schliemann, and Timothy Hartung, have plenty of work cut out for them. "The south Lawn is a major thing for anyone to deal with," says Anderson. "Lou Kahn [renowned architect who bailed out on a commission from the University] could never come to terms with it."

Not only must they deal with the weight of the history and traditions that pervade the Lawn and UVA as a whole, but as "the most ambitious construction undertaking on the Central Grounds in nearly a century," according to press releases, the progress and eventual results of Polshek Partnership's vision will be scrutinized and endlessly evaluated for the next decade.

The most critical of the pundits, though, will be the thousands of students that use the buildings on a daily basis--when you experience a space between two and 20 times weekly, minute imperfections begin to feel like gratingly personal affronts. Take the example of the award-winning Hereford Residential College by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Openly praised by critics for its daringly deconstructive reinterpretation of the Lawn, it has since been oft reviled by students for is fireproof sterility, quasi-lunar wall-mount lights, and miniscule windows worthy of battlement arrow slits (not to mention that it's a bitch of a walk).

If there's a single undergraduate student who passed through the College of Arts and Sciences in the last 50 years and didn't have some encounter with New Cabell Hall, well, I haven't met him. Those that profess to be fans of the building are far harder to find. I spent a recent weekday afternoon canvassing students entering and leaving New Cabell to see what they thought, and there were plenty of strong comments, my favorites being "sucktacular" and "comfy as a butt wart." When the nicest thing someone in a crowd of 20 has to say about a building is "it's not quite that bad," maybe it is time to make a graceful exit.

For those few sycophants who'll lament the passing of New Cabell, there's no need to ready the eulogy just yet--the building remains open for business until the new structure across the street is ready to accommodate the displaced classes in 2005. Until that time, resident students and visiting designers alike would be well-advised to recall the words inscribed above one of the west entrances to the moribund New Cabell: "You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

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