Sunday, August 2, 2009

Last Post from Oxford - St. Antony's College

We are leaving England today, but 0ur posts from Oxford would not be complete without a little mention of St. Antony's College (where we've been staying along with some American study-abroad students). St. Antony's College was established in 1950 as a graduate college of international studies, and is situated in North Oxford. Its buildings include the former Holy Trinity Convent, which has a beautiful Gothic Revival chapel designed by John Loughborough Pearson that now houses the College's library. The firm Howell, Killick, Partridge, and Amis added the Hilda Bess building in the late 1960's, which houses a dining hall and commons rooms. This concrete-framed building is a reinterpetation of the age-old communal collegiate building, and despite its rather brutalist exterior is quite nice inside with a large dining hall lit by hooded windows. The Architects Design Partnership added the Nissan Centre for Japanese Studies in 1993, a carefully detailed building influenced by Japanese architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright. Also interesting are the unrealized designs for this college by Oscar Niemeyer, which were abandoned because of the economic recession of the 1970's.

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