Campus Center

Constructed: 1970

Architects: Marcel Breuer and Associates, New York, N.Y.

Situated at the north end of the campus pond, the Murray D. Lincoln Campus Center is a widely noted example of Brutalist architecture: a poured concrete structure poised on a monumental platform, accessed by a series of broad steps. In keeping with his modernist principles, Marcel Breuer designed the facade of the building to articulate its varied functions: the recessed fenestration of the four hotel floors clearly differentiates them from the lower two floors, floors eight and nine are distinguished by a still different pattern of windows, while the top two floors are provided with sun screens that form distinctive patterns on the facade. Function is similarly expressed in the north facade and the end of the building, which have clearly articulated stair towers.

As originally conceived, the Campus Center was intended to provide space for student activities that had outgrown the Student Union Building and to provide a single location for hosting the growing number of meetings, institutes, and conferences held at the university. The Campus center includes an auditorium and suite of lecture halls, meeting rooms, hotel rooms, a radio station, and offices for student organizations. It connects by underground passageways to both the Student Union and the central parking garage.

The Center is named for alumnus Murray D. Lincoln, national leader in consumer and producer cooperatives and founder and president of CARE from 1945-1957.

• Norton, Paul F., Amherst: A Guide to Its Architecture (Amherst, 1975)
• Three Architectural Tours: Selected Buildings on the Campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (Amherst, 2000)
• For additional information, consult the University Archives (RG 36/101).