From Rented Rooms to an Atrium?
Professor John Kidwell
Chair. UW Law School Building Committee
A lot has changed in the 120 years since ened, and by the late 50's the school was
the University of Wisconsin Law School once again pressed for space; the decision
was established and Jairus H. Carpenter was made to expand the library again,
was appointed Dean and Professor of and replace the 1893 building entirely. In
Law. The rest of the faculty, apparently, 1960 the library was doubled in size, and
consisted of William F. Vilas and the in 1963 the old (and noble) structure of
entire membership of the Wisconsin 1893 made way for the building that now
Supreme Court, who were appointed as serves as our home. Only the gargoyle
"lecturers without pay." Sorry to say, as and the cornerstone remain to remind us
some who have served as lecturers could of our first permanent home.
confirm, the compensation for lecturers The new facility was designed to serve
has not improved so very much over the the needs of a student population of 650,
years! The School's first quarters were in and at the time it seemed quite reason-
a room in the Capitol, but the Law School able to believe that it would serve for a
was soon forced to move to two rented great many years. But in the late 60's and
rooms over a saloon on West Main Street! early 70's law school enrollments sky-
One wonders whether Dean Carpen- rocketed and by the mid 70's the law
ter would have anticipated that in just school population exceeded 1000. The
six-score years the Law School would faculty acted in 1972 to limit the entering
have a faculty of 50, utilize the services class to approximately 285, and by the
of 32 Wisconsin lawyers and judges as middle of the decade the school's enroll-
lecturers, and would have a student body ment had settled in at about 900. But the
of 900, 3 law journals, a support staff of library was running out of room! Just as
40, and a library with over 300,000 vol- it had been difficult to anticipate the
umes! Probably not. enrollment increases of the previous dec-
But one thread might connect Deans ade, so it had been difficult to predict the
Carpenter and Thompson over those explosion in legal publications. This led
twelve decades. I suspect that the prob- to a modest addition to the library in so three separate proposals which would
lem of not enough space, and what to do 1978. The addition was smaller than had have involved additional towers, or
about it, must have begun to haunt Jairus been originally planned, and was always underground structures, failed to gain
Carpenter before many years had passed understood as just the first phase of a approval of Campus Planning. It is
on West Main just as it occupies Cliff more ambitious project. A great deal of important to note that one of the alterna-
Thompson (and me, as chair of the Law the space added, although intended ulti- tives which was rejected by the faculty
School Building Committee] today. In mately for the use of the library, was was to seek a new building on another
fact, after ten years over the saloon, in being "borrowed" for faculty offices, site. A solid majority of the faculty
1885 the Law School moved back into seminar rooms, and student organi- believed that such a move would weaken
the Capitol. Someone with some imagina- zations. the School's program of interdisciplinary
tion must have commented humorously For the last ten years the Law School research and teaching. Many also
on that! Building Committee has been working to believed that the cost of such a reloca-
We know that in 1888, 20 years after gain approval for the second phase of the tion-6 or 7 times the cost of improving
the Law School greeted its first entering project begun in 1978. A number of dif- the existing facility-made approval of
class, the University Board of Visitors ferent proposals have been reviewed by funding of the proposal speculative, if not
reported that, "The relation of [the Law the faculty, and by the Campus Planning downright unlikely.
School] to the University at present is not Committee. One of the constraints which In 1986 Jim Kennedy, an architect on
unlike that of a stray child. The Commit- confronted (and confounded] the faculty the staff of the UW's Department of
tee would recommend that this depart- committee, and which led to early pro- Planning and Construction who had been
ment be found and taken home." Presto! posals being greeted without enthusiasm assigned to help the Law School Building
By 1893 the Law School was in its own by the Campus Planning Committee was Committee with its proposal, said that he
newly constructed building on the cam- an increasing concern about any building had some ideas which he would like to
pus; things seemed to have moved proposal which would increase the "foot- explore with us. And so was born the
quickly before the turn of the century. print" of buildings on Bascom Hill; peo- idea that those of us at the Law School
Apparently this structure served admira- ple had come to realize that the open have come to call the Atrium Plan-a
bly for some years, but (in what by 1988 space on the Hill was being nibbled away $4.5 million construction and remodeling
is a familiar story) the growth of the by expansion of existing buildings, and proposal. I am happy to report that the
school and its library required the con- that this was a course that must be Campus Planning Committee greeted this
struction of a library addition in 1939. avoided if we were to preserve the charm proposal with enthusiasm, and in their
The pace of growth apparently quick- of the historic center of the campus. And report to the Chancellor they recom-
7
mended that it be included in the Madi- The space would be used for: presentation to the Committee, by a spe-
son campus request for construction ••The Law School's Extension/Outreach cial presentation to a subcommittee of
from funds appropriated for this coming program, now housed in rented space Campus Planning (who were also given
biennium. Chancellor Shalala agreed, at 905 University Avenue; a chance to tour the Law Building) and,
and submitted the request for UW Sys- ••Office space which would replace office finally, by a personal presentation to the
tem review. If they approve, the proposal space within the Law Library; the space entire Campus Planning Committee dur-
will be submitted for review by the State in the library would be returned to the ing which they had the opportunity to
Building Commission in the spring of library to meet collection and service ask questions. During the time I have
1989. Assuming this approval, design needs; served as chair of the Law School's Build
work would begin and the actual project ••A modern law-office laboratory for use ing Committee I have sometimes grown
would get underway in 1990, and would in teaching lawyering skills which weary of the pace of the review process,
reach completion in late 1991. would also accommodate existing but as we inch our way toward our objec
In broad outline the idea is to build a audio-visual and computer equipment; tive, I must admit that the process has
two-story structure within the existing ••A trial courtroom and judge's chambers forced us to a clearer understanding of
law school courtyard and then enclose for use in teaching trial-advocacy skills. what our needs are, and to a better plan
the courtyard itself with a transparent In addition to the new space, the plan for meeting those needs.
roof. The roof of the interior structure would provide for the remodeling of Briefly, we argued that the Law
would become the floor of a large open space within the library which is now School's need was a product of the inter-
area-a year-round interior courtyard; used for offices and seminar rooms, as action of three factors: a significant
this floor, probably divided into two or well as providing for the installation of increase in enrollment since the con-
more levels and connected by ramps, much-needed compact shelving to allevi- struction of the building, the increasing
would become a common-area, and the ate the shortage of shelf space for books. needs of the Law Library for space, and
focus of the law school. At present, traf- Finally, Room 150 (the Moot Court Room) changes in the method of instruction in
fic patterns in the building are hopelessly would be remodeled to become a more law school which require new kinds of
awkward; the construction of the Atrium effective appellate courtroom, which facilities.
would permit the unification of what are could do double-duty as a general pur- During the more than two decades
presently, really, separate buildings in a pose classroom. since the Law School was the subject of 6
dramatic, and we believe, thoroughly In order to persuade the Campus Plan- major addition the Law School's enroll-
functional way. Although actual plans ning Committee, and the Chancellor, to ment has increased by more than 50%,
would not be created unless the concept endorse our request for funds for the with a concomitant increase in faculty
is approved, Jim Kennedy has estimated project we had to demonstrate that it was and staff. In 1968-69 the enrollment was
that as much as 65% of the cubic footage a crucial need. Sitting through a meeting 587; it is now 900. In 1968-69 the faculty
of the courtyard would remain as open of the Campus Planning Committee, one and staff totalled 57; that number is now
space. The plan would generate approxi- quickly learns how difficult it is to com- 92. In 1968-69 the Law School generated
mately 12,500 net assignable square feet. pare and evaluate the many worthwhile approximately 17,000 credit hours; that
This is a conservative estimate, and projects being sponsored by a variety of number is now 25,000. This increase has
doesn't include the common area-the Departments and Schools on campus. We placed pressure on every aspect of the
"roof" of the two-story structure. were able to make our case by written Law School's operation.
8
The law library collection has grown
even more dramatically than the size of
the student body and faculty, creating a
space shortage that is already serious
and will soon be critical on some floors.
Accepted library standards indicate that
inefficiency and damage to books begins
when the shelves are more than 75% full;
80% of our shelf space is full. In 1969 the
collection consisted of 120,000 volumes
and 75,000 microforms; those numbers
have increased to 279,000 volumes and
330,000 microforms. Microforms save
stack space, but have their own require-
ments for cabinets and viewing space and
our need here is very serious. In addi-
tion, the use of new technologies-an-line
legal research services, video, and photo-
copying equipment-have created the
need for more space for both users and
staff.
Changes in teaching methods during
the past two decades require additional
and different kinds of facilities. Lectures
to large classes must be supplemented by
more instruction in small groups if the
law school is to prepare students ade-
quately to represent their clients and the
public. There is a need for more courses
in which simulated lawyering activities
can occur with an opportunity for indivi-
dualized critiques. Classrooms designed
to accommodate 60, or 160, are ill-suited
for such purposes.
Although the Law School Continuing
Education and Outreach program has
become, administratively, an integral part
of the Law School, it presently is housed
in rented space across University Ave-
nue; it must be moved into the Law
Building in order to achieve its full poten-
tial-indeed, a move may be precipitated
by the landlord's request, upon the expi-
ration of the current lease.
As an example of non-classroom space
demands, the number of employers con-
ducting on-campus interviews at the Law
School has increased from 126 in 1975/76
to 249 in 1987/88. In the fall semester of
1987/88 alone, 225 employers conducted
more than 5900 individual interviews.
The four interview rooms created out of
a classroom in the mid-1970's became
inadequate years ago. Interviewing is one, especially the handicapped who nicest features of the existing building;
now done in scarce library space and in often have to take awkward detours to those who have attended UW Law School
temporarily vacant faculty offices. move about within the building. It also since 1972 when I joined the faculty
Anyone who has ever visited the Law makes it very difficult to have an ade- know that few faculty have enjoyed it
School can appreciate the difficulty of quate library security system. The new more than I have! But I am satisfied that
traffic patterns within the building. We construction and remodeling would sub- we should not regard the plan as involv-
sometimes joke among ourselves that the stantially alleviate these problems. ing the loss of the courtyard, but rather
Law School is a bit too much like the I am optimistic that the project is mov- as its transformation into something that
House on the Rock; instead of The Infin- ing toward ultimate approval and imple- will preserve much that is special, be
ity Room, we have the Stairway to mentation. All of us have been very available year round, and that will sig-
Nowhere and Reality Checkpoint. This apprehensive about tampering with the nificantly improve the rest of the law
layout causes inconvenience for every- building's courtyard, since it is one of the building.
9