herr2ck: Postmodern Beaux-Arts

September 2025.

Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law is housed inside Drinko Hall, perhaps one of the more out-there works of campus architecture. I’m honestly not a fan of the addition’s exterior expression, it’s rather schizophrenic and the references to Beaux-Arts architecture go straight over most people’s heads. (I noticed it, but I’m biased.) Drinko Hall is located on south campus, bordered by the Union to the north, 11th Avenue and 45-53 West 11th Avenue to the south, High Street to the east, and Smith-Steeb and Baker Hall to the west.

History

The Law Building’s east facade in 1965. (Buckeye Stroll)

Drinko Hall was designed in 1955 by Cincinnati firm Potter, Tyler, Martin, and Roth as the Law Building. (They are best known for designing the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Adams-Emery Wing.) It was built in the Mid-Century Modern style with a concrete frame and brick exterior. Construction began that April, F & Y Building Service, Inc. being the general contractor, and the building was finished by August 15, 1956.

The Law Building’s original footprint.

Less than a year after construction finished, an addition was designed by the same firm. Construction on the addition started in May 1957, this time by Robert W. Setterlin & Sons Co., and concluded in May 1959.

The Law Building after its first addition.

A courtroom in the Law Building, 1960. (Buckeye Stroll)

Drinko Hall’s large west addition was approved in July 1991, which added 60,000 square feet to the building for library and office usage. No architect is listed on John Herrick’s entry, however other sources attribute it to Gunnar Birkerts (best known for the goofy Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) and NBBJ. Its construction was completed by 1993.

Drinko Hall’s current footprint.

Drinko Hall was named after alumnus John Deaver Drinko in 1995. Drinko graduated from the College of Law in 1944, and he eventually became a managing partner of BakerHostetler. He received a Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1991 and the 1995 Alumni Medalist Award.

Photos

Drinko Hall is huge and not possible to capture in its entirety, so I started at the northeast side along High Street:

East facade of the original building:

The first floor’s windows are replaced by large stone tablets engraved with quotes:

This moment on the first addition is a very common Postmodern one, despite it being older--the axis from High Street leads nowhere:

One would expect that grand staircase and walkway to lead to an entrance, but there’s nothing there, and the entrance is north of that east-west axis. I do wonder if there were originally doors there that were removed later on.

Detail of the bay window and sign above:

This portion has much taller and skinnier windows, and it is built of masonry and not brick.

Window detail--note the black spandrel:

Southeast corner:

Hmm…I see some New Formalist moves going on here. This entrance has a portico, common on classical buildings:

The two masses here are even crowned with cornices:

The bottom portion has abstracted triglyphs and paterae, but the version above is less classically inspired.

The southern portion of the first addition from further away:

The second addition is compositionally its own building. It doesn’t respond to either of the two mid-century portions in massing, expression, or fenestration.

The light facade yields to a dark, metallic mass behind:

South facade of the second addition:

I dislike the arbitrariness of the fenestration here, but I think it’s interesting how the building shakily curves, as if it’s an arc that isn’t yet fully rendered:

The windows being recessed and the embossed panels do add a nice sense of depth, too.

It’s such a wide building.

These “coupled” columns are a reference to Second Empire and Beaux-Arts architecture, as it was common for pediments or colonnades in those styles to have two adjacent columns where one would be employed in antiquity.

Again, the light stone facade falls just short of the denser black mass behind, revealing the stair tower here:

This portion ultimately comes to a point at the northwest corner:

The point is meant to create an axis. To where is escaping me at the moment, but it’s in the direction of the South Oval and Thompson Library.

The north facade is similar to the west side, but it’s both smaller and less angled.

More seemingly random blocked-off windows:

The comparison I’m drawn to is a blister pack of cold medicine or something that isn’t yet empty. You can see through the missing foil and plastic receptacle for the pill, but the unopened ones are opaque.

North entrance:

Sign above:

Another that names the building specifically:

Detail of the column capitals:

It’s also interesting to me how much of the base is open, which provides a lot of space for people to eat outside or study, as well as a path from nearby Smith-Steeb or Baker Hall. This flight of stairs to the north stair tower is enclosed with two walls but open behind me:

Triangular pier:

Nice look down the path formed by the columns:

The interior of the second addition is just as wacky as the outside, but the wood makes it feel a lot more welcoming than the cold exterior finishes.

I doubt it’s been updated since 1993, either, which makes it a nice time capsule.

The late Postmodern spaces of Gen-Z’s childhood are disappearing pretty quickly. If you look at liminal spaces online (cliche, I know), a lot of them have similar characteristics to that style of architecture.

I really should have kept my digital camera out and done this interior justice, but it was rather busy. Deep-fried iPhone camera quality it is.

Hallway to the library:

I like the glass block clerestories along the east wall. The light wood + white paint + copious glass/natural light is really bringing me back.

I forgot Drinko Hall has the law library inside. I really hate taking photos around heavily populated places like these on campus, but I was already there and started at this point, so I just sucked it up and kept going. This is why I don’t have a post for 18th Ave, Thompson, or Orton yet--I have to plan those out and be there right as they open or close.

Circulation desk:

These baby-blue metal shelves seem rather Modernist and anachronistic, though:

There’s an interesting tension between beautiful, earth-toned antique books being held on cold metal shelves. I see this move a lot in architecture--Robert Venturi’s first commission made the same move, and a lot of Modern projects did it too. While I am more in the ornate wood bookshelf camp, I can at least acknowledge that this is interesting.

Postmodern architecture like this has such a weird, dreamy atmosphere. It’s somehow so nostalgic, yet retrofuturistic in a way. My hometown’s library was also a Postmodern design, so maybe personal experience is doing some heavy lifting for my point here.