On Bryn Mawr's Landscapes
Alumnae/i celebrate the physicalâand emotionalâspace of Bryn Mawr.
âBryn Mawr is my standard for beauty,â says photographer Paola Nogueras â84, who has created a voluminous visual record of our alma mater in publications for prospective students and alumnae/i. âSunken Garden, Taft Garden, the spaces behind GoodhartâI know every nook and cranny, and Iâm still discovering beautiful places.â
Though her hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is notably lush, Nogueras was staggered by the burst of cherry and apple blossoms her first year on campus. Now, looking back on her career, she says the technical trial of capturing Bryn Mawrâshooting Lantern Night in the dark or framing the frenzy of the Maypole/hole dances amid flying studentsâis a cinch compared to the challenge of translating the Collegeâs significance. And like any Mawrter, sheâs most critical of work sheâs done on a subject she knows intimately. âIâve taken so many pictures,â she says. âBut Iâve never been able to impart all the meaning Step Sing had for me.â
Bryn Mawr is a site-specific experience. For alumnae/i, built structures like the Senior Steps conjure ceremonies that are invisibleâeven incomprehensibleâto the uninitiated. âI love the halls of Taylor: the golden wood, the way the sunlight streams through the large windows, connecting the inside and outside in every season,â says Jessica Bass Kirk â91. An English major, she spent much of her time in English House, where âgoing up the stairs to your classroom, in the space where faculty had offices, felt like joining the community of scholars.â
Both women speak to a feeling familiar to alumnae/i: the parallel landscapes we occupy as studentsâthe past and present, the immediate and eternalâmerge only rarely, such as when we perform our peculiar traditions or in the pause Reunion compels.
As Kirk reflects, âI find Senior Row such a compelling landscape to contemplate, which we didnât have time to do when we were here, hurrying to class. Our memories of that space are mostly of May Day: garlands in our hair, rolling hoops, trampling mudâthe whole merry, cacophonous experience.â Revisiting the row with her daughter to âstore a quiet momentâ after Reunion last year, Kirk was struck by the âstrong and vulnerableâ landscape she saw through her camera lens. She explains, âThese majestic trees have been here since the College was founded. But for Bryn Mawrâs commitment to this arboretum, they could be chopped down tomorrow for firewood. The trees endure much like the stone buildings doâwhile we come and go with our present-day concerns, sharing time with them.â
Bryn Mawrâs intellectual and emotional effect is by design, âcreating an environment that is at once comforting and challenging,â says architect Daniela Holt Voith â76, whose own firm specializes in designing educational environments. âThe inner sanctum created by the walls of the Pems, Rock, and Goodhart is clearly saying, âWeâre important. We do hard work here.â The architecture creates space for making intellectual connections. Iâve tried to replicate this idea over and over again in my campus planning and architectural response to campuses.â
Voith had planned to study anthropology and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, but her motherâs death during her senior year in high school made her reconsider. âAt Penn, there was nobody who would take care of me,â she recalls. Investigating the possibility of enrolling at Bryn Mawr but majoring at Penn, she found herself seated in Dean McPhersonâs office, with its imposing desk and elegant oriental rug. âShe handed me an onion-skin carbon copy of Barbara Miller Laneâs proposal to start the Growth and Structure of Cities program, and I decided right there,â Voith says. One of the first Cities majors, she later developed and taught Bryn Mawrâs design studio program.
Echoing fellow alumnae/i, Voith adds, âOf course, you canât divorce a physical space from the emotional space. Walking through halls where others have walked before you, knowing that youâre part of something bigger than yourself, has always been inspiring and comforting to me. At Bryn Mawr, I had teachers and friends who made a huge impression. Those people are the reason the buildings and spaces mean something to me.â
Our relationship with the College affects how we perceive it. Bryn Mawr is the physical campus of cloistered buildings run through with graceful paths and an allée of maple trees, the intellectual landscape cultivated within its gothic halls, and significant architecture earning designation as a National Historic Landmark. For alumnae/i, Bryn Mawr is both monument and memory palace, keeping our college years.
Published on: 02/07/2020