2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
Deconstructing Saddlemire
By: Alison Kemp
Issue date: 8/24/07 Section: Campus
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From the outskirts of campus, you really can't tell the round building built like a slide projector that all of us have a love or hate relationship with is no longer with us.
Theoretically, it is still here. Parts of it are, at least, even though it is no longer on the online campus map. Its parts have been gutted and are sitting in a pile on the east side of the building, and the third floor has fallen.
Saddlemire was built with asbestos, a particle found in building materials that is harmful to humans, so the building had to come down.
It is also built on prime campus land, land that will be used to build the Wolfe Center for the Arts, which is how the circle that used to be Saddlemire is now identified on the campus map.
"I hope that students don't look at [Saddlemire] as a distraction," said Bob Waddle, assistant vice president of capital planning.
He said he really wishes Saddlemire was entirely torn down before the freshmen returned to campus, but because more asbestos was found in the building, deconstruction was delayed.
The demolition process - which Waddle called fascinating - should be complete in early to mid-September, Waddle said.
Designs for the Wolfe Center still need to be completed. The Collaborative Inc., from Toledo, was selected to be the architect of record for the project. Snohetta, an architecture firm with offices in New York City and Olso and designers of a library in Alexandria, Egypt, the opera house in Oslo and the World Trade Center Cultural Center in New York City, was selected to design the Wolfe Center.
From Katerina Ray's office window in the Fine Arts Center, the director of the school of art has been able to watch Saddlemire be taken apart.
She said she was fond of Saddlemire, but in its current state she said it looks like "a bionic mushroom."
But Ray is willing to deal with a strange-looking project outside her window.
"It's making way for something that will be very beautiful," she said.
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