From Brutalism to Modernism

The evolving architecture on ASU's Tempe campus

By Bella Mazzilli

Illustrations by Lilliana Lopez

Floods of students constantly enter and exit buildings on the Tempe campus, foot traffic ebbing and flowing like a current. Students meander through the halls and classrooms without second thought as the architecture withstands the hoards.

The inhabitants of the Tempe campus are cycled out year by year, forgetting the mundane, everyday moments that propelled their college careers. But the buildings don’t forget. They hold those moments until they can’t anymore, then they undergo remodels that allow them to continue their campus legacy. They maintain history while evolving with time.

Tempe was native land belonging to O’Odham, Piipaash and their ancestors, and it was mostly desert landscape before ASU’s establishment. Since then, the campus has slowly developed into an assortment of architectural styles. From Old Main to the Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health, the campus is a showcase of clean concrete lines and intricate brickwork.

A history lesson through architecture

Kathleen Lamp, an associate professor in the Department of English who has expertise in material culture, said ASU has several architectural styles on campus. She named Old Main, Durham Hall and West Hall, pointing out their distinct and diverging architectural styles and looks.

“[The architecture] is really mixed — you see that as you move through the different areas of campus,” Lamp said.

Old Main, ASU’s oldest building, was constructed in 1898 in the Victorian Queen Anne architectural style with Richardsonian Romanesque touches. The Queen Anne style is known for its corner towers and intricate brickwork, while the Richardsonian Romanesque style draws from Italian, French and Spanish Romanesque styles from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Named after G. Homer Durham, the University’s president from 1960 to 1969, Durham Hall was built in 1964. It was remodeled in 2019, and the project took three years to complete, costing $65 million. The building became a center of language and culture studies at the University.

“Durham, for the size of [the] building, does a really good job not overpowering Old Main, and it’s not overly differential,” said Renée Cheng, dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. “You don’t see the language being repeated. You see the color of the material being supported. They did a good job with the … window rhythms and things like that. They don’t mimic but also don’t overwhelm.”

West Hall is neither historical, like Old Main, nor modernistic like Durham’s renovations. Built in 1936, the two-story brick building is modest in appearance. Originally a girl’s dorm, the building’s one standout architectural feature is its sweeping white vertical columns, which Lamp associated with the Neoclassical style.

Lamp said the Walton Center is the epitome of ASU’s modern architectural style. The scale-like facade of the building evokes otherworldly imagination contrasting its strong base supported by sturdy cylindrical columns.

Its structure was inspired by a geode.

The University’s rich history is told through the campus’s varied architectural styles, and they complement each other nicely, Lamp said.

“It’s getting more cohesive as they’re making more buildings,” she said.

Cheng said the diverse architecture demonstrates a core value of ASU’s charter.

“ASU is open and willing to change as an institution, and you can see it reflected in the buildings. The older buildings are preserved, often with that kind of history, but then you also have brand new buildings sitting right beside them; they’re in a very direct dialog, [but] they just coexist,” she said.

“[The Tempe campus] is actually fairly eclectic in a really nice way,” Cheng added. “There’s a wide range of buildings from different eras. There is some uniformity along the [campus]. I think the landscape architecture is probably the stronger language than the building architecture.”

The desert landscape and ASU’s architecture

Lamp said the University’s progress toward environmental and sustainability efforts has influenced the newer architecture on campus.

“Increasingly, what you see is architecture that thinks about [how] ASU is placed in the desert, and [incorporating] sustainability [and] energy efficiency,” she said. “You’re seeing more of a embracing of our location in many ways.”

Mayte Banuelos, a freshman studying architecture, said the Walton Center is a great example of landscape-based architecture. The building’s water feature adds to its heat-resistant qualities, helping passersby avoid the brutality of Arizona’s weather.

“One of the main architects made [the building] to mimic the Saguaro cactus ridges — their ridges on the southside are deeper because of the way that the sun moves,” Banuelos said. “So, it’s better. It provides shade for itself.”

According to Cheng, shade provided by elevated solar panels is one of the key pieces of dual-purpose energy-efficient architecture on campus. In Arizona, utilizing solar power can alleviate the cost of maintaining a large university like ASU.

“I’ve seen on campus, there’s various places where there’s shade with solar,” she said. “I often joke, ‘Why is the whole campus not just covered with this? Why stop at one area or another?’ We need shade, even on a day where the temperatures are not that high. We have so much sun [in Tempe] that the ability to capture energy through the solar panels seems to be something that could be an important statement.”

Surprisingly, Cheng said, ASU’s older buildings are some of the more heat-resistant structures on the campus, as the chosen materials for these buildings create a natural cooling feature.

“They’re thick wall[ed] with what we call monolithic construction,” she said. “Even though [the building] might have multiple materials, they’re all joined together, and the thickness helps with what’s called thermal lag, where it could heat up during the day but then reflect warmth at night.”

According to Cheng, ASU’s developers are constructing mindfully in 2025, with building materials specifically chosen for their ability to minimize air-conditioning costs. When materials like platinum and multiple-walled glass are used, Cheng said the building is inherently more sustainable and aligned with ASU’s mission of and commitment to sustainability.

Fan favorites

Lamp’s favorite spaces to work on the Tempe campus are the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts buildings, as she enjoys the Brutalist style. She also named the Walton Center as an “interesting” addition to the Tempe campus. She was skeptical about the building’s unique style while it was under construction, but she now enjoys the visual exterior and the Center’s use as a gathering space.

Cheng’s building of choice on the Tempe campus is not a building, but an area.

“I do love the plaza that’s in front of … the Art Museum [near the Music Building],” she said. “[It’s] quintessential to Herberger.”

Similarly, Banuelos said the museum is also her favorite. In one of her architecture classes, a professor mentioned that the building is designed to resemble Arizona’s mountain ranges. She likes the shadows the structure casts and appreciates the history and intention behind the building’s design.

For Samantha Matienzo, a senior studying architecture, the Social Sciences Building is her oasis. Replete with thick concrete and vibrant plant life that cools the structure, this building contains an atrium with a canopy roof that allows for natural light. A favorite of many students, the water feature takes center stage with tables tucked into shaded corners.

“That’s just one of my favorite buildings because [it] has so much greenery inside,” she said. “The building [has] this breeze block facade.”

Cheng explained that many people draw energy from the spaces they occupy, which leads them to picking their favorite buildings. She added that architectural styles create energy that can affect interpersonal communication.

“I’m actually super sensitive to space,” she said. “If it’s a bad space, it makes me super distracted and lowers my energy.”