October 2024.
Bolz Hall… one of three phallically named engineering buildings. Take a wild guess what students call it instead. Additionally, it being attached to Hitchcock Hall probably doesn’t make things any better. Strap in for another boring one, all these Modernist engineering buildings are nothing special.
Bolz Hall is located on north campus, attached to Hitchcock Hall to the north and bordered by Caldwell Lab to the south, the Physics Research Building to the east, and the Northwest and Tuttle Garage to the west.
History
Bolz Hall’s main facade, undated. (Buckeye Stroll)
Bolz Hall was designed in 1957 by Bellman, Gillett, and Richards as the “Civil and Aeronautical Engineering Building,” also abbreviated to the “CAE Building.” Drawings were labeled as “College of Engineering Classroom-Office Facilities.” How innovative. It was done in a rather bare Mid-Century Modernist style, clad in brick and framed in concrete. Construction began in February 1958, the general contractor being Knowlton Construction Co., and the space was released for use on January 7, 1960. At a cost of roughly $2.4 million (which also included Caldwell Lab’s first addition), Bolz Hall has 58,466 square feet of space.
Bolz Hall’s south facade, also undated. (Buckeye Stroll)
Bolz Hall was recently remodeled twice, both within the last decade. The original, very Modernist spandrels and curtain wall on the south facade were removed in 2016 in favor of a contemporary glassy skin. The architects, BDT Architects and Designers, originally wanted to simply change the windows, but decided to replace the entire curtain wall due to cost and construction time. Their write-up on the project is really well written, and you can read it here. I think the end result is superior--the original spandrels were still referenced, but the wall becomes much lighter and more transparent.
Additionally, the fourth floor was renovated in early 2020, which apparently ruffled a lot of feathers among engineering students. The schedule may have been changed due to COVID, but I don’t see anything else about it in the Lantern article.
Harold Bolz in 1959. (Buckeye Stroll)
The Civil and Aeronautical Engineering Building was renamed to “Bolz Hall” in May 1989, after Dr. Harold Bolz. (I hope his nickname wasn’t Harry.) Bolz attended Case Western (at that time the Case Institute of Technology) and earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1933 and 1935, respectively. He worked in Cleveland for a few years before beginning his teaching career at Purdue University. After eight years, Bolz became Ohio State’s associate dean of engineering in 1954, and was promoted to dean four years later. He retired in 1976 and was named dean emeritus, briefly serving as the interim president of Ohio Northern University. Bolz died in 1999.
Photos
Looking at the west facade of Bolz Hall, I’m uninspired. Even Hitchcock Hall, its equally unattractive neighbor, actually attains some three-dimensionality instead of having a flat brick curtain wall only interrupted by windows. If you gave a preschooler a piece of paper and some crayons and told them to draw a building, I think the end result would be similar.
Seriously, this is just bad campus architecture.
The new glass curtain wall on the south facade is an improvement for sure, though.
Around back, the building abruptly shifts to one story. I didn’t get a picture, but looking through the windows there was a laboratory of some kind.
Rusting Atomic Age implementia:
Apparently, the curtain wall was carried over to the other side too:
I do find the entry to be admittedly cool, and there’s a datestone inscribed “1959” too. It also looks like there was a red sign with the building’s name next to the door, now missing.
Inside and immediately to the left, there’s a plaque honoring Harold Bolz.
Looking ahead, Modernism meets millennial gray:
The first floor is mostly classrooms. On the second floor, which holds offices, there is this cool display of aeronautical-related items…
…and whatever a “photogrammetric computer vision laboratory” is:
The stairwells appears unaltered, but if you look closely, the gray paint on the risers is chipping away to reveal blue underneath. Turquoise and beige…I can’t think of a more mid-century color palette, can you? It’s just missing the light pink.
The third floor has more classrooms. For whatever reason, this level didn’t get the millennial gray treatment. Aside from the tile, everything looks period-correct.
I ended up not being able to access the fourth floor, since both doors in the stairwells required swipe access. That must be the end result of the 2020 renovation.
Bolz Hall is scheduled for a future renovation in the long term, according to Framework 3.0.
Sources:
https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/24059
https://library.osu.edu/site/buckeyestroll/
https://www.thelantern.com/2020/02/sudden-development-in-bolz-hall-disrupts-cege-community/
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