The Ugly Side of Oxford

Oxford is one of the most beautiful cities in England. Historic. Inspiring.

I'd imagine if you haven't been here you're thinking all of the buildings are majestic and the aura is like I said before, "Academic Disneyland". Well they are... and it is.... sometimes.

I literally cringe everytime I drive down Banbury Rd and see this eyesore - the Denys Wilkinson Building. 

Or drive along this beauty...

A few blocks from my home you find Oxford's Administrative building - University Offices in Wellington Square - home of the University Chancelor, Vice Chancelor, University Admissions Department, Development Office etc... one long block of beautiful 2 story cement facade. Quaint, isn't it?

I've been reading Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island", which is snort out loud funny and chock full of spot on observations. As an American writer that lived in England for more than 2 decades, Bill has an uncanny ability to unravel his surroundings and put them into words that make you think - Wow, I've definitely noticed that but have never put my finger on it quite like he does.

In Notes from a Small Island, Bryson sums up Oxford's architecture....

What sort of mad seizure was it that gripped the city’s planners, architects, and college authorities in the 1960s and 1970s? [...] Just look at the Merton College Warden’s Quarters – which is not by any means the worst building in the city. What a remarkable series of improbabilities were necessary to its construction. First, some architect had to design it, had to wander through a city steeped in eight hundred years of architectural tradition, and with great care conceive of a structure that looked like a toaster with windows. Then a committee of finely educated minds at Merton had to show the most extraordinary indifference to their responsibilities to posterity and say to themselves, ‘You know, we’ve been putting up handsome buildings since 1264; let’s have an ugly one for a change.’ Then the planning authorities had to say, ‘Well, why not? Plenty worse elsewhere.’ Then the whole of the city—students, dons, shopkeepers, office workers, members of the Oxford Preservation Trust—had to acquiesce and not kick up a fuss. Multiply this by, say, two hundred or three hundred or four hundred and you have modern Oxford.  - Bill Bryson

Seems the post war era led to many monstrosities dotted around the city with some of these buildings looking like they could be prisons.

I have to say, that my university town, Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University and founded to model after the real deal - Oxford University - has done a better job of preserving the consistency of the architecture with those red brick buildings.

I never appreciated it much while I was there, but its clear what 1000 years of history and nouveau building ideas will do to an institution!